Changing Fate
by SinikkavonWolperting
Summary: I loved the end of the game as much as I hated it. So I decided to write my own story, how FFXV could have went. Very Prompto-based. Ardyn tells Prompto something he isn't able to put aside that easy and which leads him to make a decision he first regrets, before realizing he is now able to change fate.
1. A good strange guy

**Here it begins and I really hope people will like this. Beta read by Elillierose, who also keeps me motivated to do this.**

* * *

Who would have thought that they would meet him again. That strange man from Galdin Quay was leaning against the low wall of the lookout, looking rather surprised as he recognized Noctis and his friends.

"Well what a surprise meeting you here." He greeted them with a lopsided smile.

Gladio, remembering his strange behavior the last time they met, made a half-step to the left so he was standing between the stranger and Noctis. This caused the man to hold up both hands and chuckle nervously.

"No need to be hostile, really." He said, leaning a bit back at Gladio's warning gaze. "Actually...I want to apologize for my behavior."

"Apologize?" Prompto asked, speaking out what the others were thinking, "What do you mean?"

"Well, you know." He said, visibly embarrassed. He was fumbling with his hat in his hands for a moment, before he spoke again. "I feel so bad about it but I was terribly frustrated that the ferry to Altissia wouldn't come for a while and had a few more drinks than appropriate."

"Wait...are you telling us you were acting like the biggest weirdo because you were drunk?" Noctis asked, not hiding the amusement in his voice.

The man nodded, an embarrassed smile forming on his face. "I guess that describes it quite accurately."

Prompto couldn't suppress a snort and Noctis' shoulders relaxed. Ignis and Gladio were still wary but allowed themselves to calm down a bit.

"The name is Ardyn, by the way."

Not seeing any more reason for hostility, the guys introduced themselves as well. Ardyn seemed like a nice enough guy, if a little weird, and the creepy vibe he gave off in Galdin was completely gone.

"Are you still headed for Altissia?" He asked as the conversation went on. Noctis grew quiet and looked away for a moment.

"Kind of." He answered eventually, "We wanted to...visit the disc of Cauthess but Niflheim got everything shut off there."

"'Visit'?" Ardyn asked with a knowing smile, "Or rather have a talk with nice guy Titan sitting in his cozy crater over there?"

Gladio's jaw clenched visibly but Ardyn laughed and waved a hand. "Oh come now, do you really think I don't know the face of the crown prince?" He was now talking in a lower tone so as not to not attract the attention of the people near them, "You see, I have some secrets about my person as well. Or let's say...'imperial secrets'."

"You work for the empire?" Prompto blurted our. He flinched as he earned a warning gaze from Ignis, but Ardyn immediately made a calming gesture.

"I'm no important person, but it's true, I am a part of the empire." He explained with a soft smile, "But only because I do, that doesn't mean I'm on their side or share their view of things if you know what I mean. I know things, true, but also I can be very useful. You want to get to Titan? I can take you. What do you say?"

He looked at their faces, waiting for an answer.

"I think we need to think this through for a moment." Noctis said a bit hesitant before turning to his friends. Ardyn gave a short nod and turned around to leave them alone for the moment, occupying himself by watching the other people walking by.

"This might be our only chance, right?" Noctis said in a low tone when he felt safe that Ardyn had wandered far enough away.

"He gets us through the barricade, you have your chat with Titan and we leave again. Sounds easy enough, right?" Prompto summarized in a hopeful voice. He wasn't fond of going there to begin with but he knew Noctis had to and he wouldn't leave him. But anything that would speed this up and meant less fighting sounded good enough to the blond.

"This might be the best we can get." Ignis said, "This Ardyn seems genuine to me. A helpful soul as long as he stays away from alcohol and the like."

"So it's settled, then?"Noctis asked, looking from one to another, "Gladio?"

The Shield had been quiet all the time, eyeing Ardyn like he was trying to remember where he knew his face from. When he heard Noctis call his name he turned his head to look at him.

"I don't know where to put him yet." He said and threw another short glance over to Ardyn, who was absentmindedly looking over one of the near food stands. "But I guess it will do. As you said, he might be the only chance to get to Titan. And he seems alright, I guess."

"Let's get to it then, before I change my mind." Noctis swiftly walked over to Ardyn to tell him their decision. The man made a short bow and a delighted smile appeared on his face.

"Truly glad I can be of service."

Together they walked over to the parking lot, Ardyn talking about his car but Noctis' thoughts were somewhere else. He glanced over to the faintly glowing meteor one last time. He wasn't sure it he was ready for it, but now there was no turning back.

* * *

"So, what do you think of him?" Prompto asked into the silence of the car drive. Everyone seemed to be deeply in thought and the silence became near unbearable for him.

"You mean Ardyn?" Gladio finally reacted and Prompto instantly turned around in his seat to face him, relieved that someone would talk to him.

"Yeah. I mean, looks like he's cool, right? I was just thinking, if he's really from Niflheim, can't we ask him to help us with some other things? I'm sure he knows a lot of stuff about the empire."

"I would rather not rely on him too much." Gladio said, "I want to get this done without anyone getting hurt and then-"

He was cut off by a phone ringing. Noctis sat up straight and started rummaging through his pockets until he eventually found his phone and took the call. He formed the word 'Dave' with his lips for the others while he listened to the voice on the phone.

"What did he want?" Gladio asked when the call ended. Noctis leaned forward to pat on Ignis' backrest to get his attention. "Dave and his hunters are having an issue with monsters at the Cauthess station and the situation is getting out of hand. He said the Station is basically overrun. We really should get there."

Knowing Noctis, Ignis knew the prince didn't really want to visit the Archaeon but he wouldn't go out of his way for a minor ask for help. What he described definitely sounded dangerous. He nodded his understanding and honked a few times to get Ardyn's attention, who was driving his own car in front of them to make him slow and eventually come to a halt on the side of the street.

Noctis jumped out as soon as the Regalia had stopped as well and jogged over to Ardyn, who was looking at him questioningly.

"Got an emergency call, we need to make a quick detour." He explained, leaning slightly against the driver's door. Without asking for further explanation Ardyn gave a short nod of understanding.

"Lead the way."

"You're coming with us?"

"Why shouldn't I? I may not be much of a fighter if that is required but I might as well try to be of some help, right?"

Noctis hadn't expected this. But he didn't question it, remembering the urgency in Dave's voice as he called and already turned back towards the Regalia.

"Thank you." He said before jogging back to his own car, Ardyn giving him a short wave and starting to turn his car around.

They rushed over to the rest area already seeing monsters roaming the street from afar. Ignis stopped the Regalia at a still safe distance, Ardyn's car parked behind them as they were jumping out.

"You sure you wanna do this?" Gladio asked, summoning his sword to get ready. "Can't ensure your safety when we're occupied with those things."

"Don't you worry, I can watch out for myself." Ardyn said in a slightly mocking tone, "Might I suggest not to waste anymore time now? Your prince is already on his way."

Gladio cursed as he turned around, seeing Noctis already running towards the fight.

Prompto kept his distance, realizing that he won't be of any help would he jump around amidst them, snarling monsters everywhere. He scanned over the scenery and shot where it was needed, keeping the backs of the hunters and his friends as free as possible. Following the light blue streak that was Noctis warping right in between a group of monsters that had surrounded a hunter. Taking one of the beasts out mid-jump before it could even reach Noctis, the blond hummed a tune while twirling the gun in his hand.

When he noticed movement on his side he abruptly turned around, expecting danger, but he looked only at Ardyn, guiding some civilians and injured hunters to safety. This made him smile a bit. Ardyn was an unusual guy, like in the way he gave himself, but looking at how he helped and tried to do his part, Prompto felt like he really was one of the good guys.

The blond stiffened, as he saw movement coming from the buildings behind them. Two big beasts – What were those anyway? Havocfangs? - charged right towards the group.

"Ardyn!" He called out to the man, already running towards them, trying to aim at the beasts. He hit one of them but it didn't do much more than to make it stumble for a moment and then continue on it's path.

Ardyn had stopped by then and was turning around to look at the approaching monsters. Prompto shot a few more times, successfully turning the attention of one of them over to him. It turned and ran now towards the blond who miscalculated the distance between them, his eyes still on Ardyn who was about to brace for being jumped by the other foe. Prompto tried to dodge the attack but it was too late and the world around him turned to a whirl of colors and pain. He lost his gun when he landed on his back, which knocked the air out of him and raised his arms to protect his head, when he felt a firm grip around his right wrist.

He was jerked out from under the monster and while there were still dark blotches in his vision he could still make out Ardyn's shape next to him. The man had grabbed Prompto's gun as well and proceeded to unload it into the monster until it finally dropped dead. The blond shook his head to get rid of his obscured vision and the ringing in his ears.

"Thanks." He said, voice still a bit shaky from the rush of adrenaline, "That was close."

Ardyn didn't answer and when Prompto looked up at him again, he was staring down at Prompto's arm he was still holding. Or more specific: At his code tattooed on his wrist. Reflexively he pulled his arm away to hide it behind his back.

Ardyn made no attempt to hold him back but his gaze was serious. Without a word he handed Prompto back his gun and looked around until he found what he was looking for. He stood up and picked up the wristband Prompto was normally wearing. It must have come off when he fell. Handing it back to him as well, Ardyn looked him straight in the eyes.

"Do you know what that is?" He asked, nodding his head in the direction of Prompto's right side.

Not wanting the tattoo to be visible any longer, the blond secured the wristband around it again, pondering how he should answer this. He didn't know. It was just there, always has been.

"Not really." He said with a shrug. He tried to act not interested but Ardyn's reaction made him nervous. Since he could remember the code was always there and he always hid it. He had tried to ask his parents about it a few times but never got a satisfying answer, so he proceeded to hide it out of instinct, not wanting to be asked about it by anyone.

Ardyn knelt down again, his face worried, and pointed at Prompto's wrist.

"You really don't know what you have there?" He asked again, making the blond tense up as he heard the urgency in his voice.

"I told you, I don't." He answered, wrapping his other hand protectively around his right wrist. After thinking about it for a few seconds he asked, "Do you?"

Ardyn nodded and Prompto felt his insides cramp up for a moment. He knew something. That was no joke, Ardyn's face was dead serious, he definitely knew something about this.

The larger man got to his feet again and offered Prompto a hand to help him up.

"Let's finish this." He said in a calm voice. "I can tell you all about it if you want me to, but only under one circumstance."

"What is it?" Prompto had to take a few deep breaths to steady his voice again. He wasn't sure if it was positive excitement he felt, finally learning something about this one thing that had accompanied him all those years and he still knew nothing about, or if it was fear. Fear because of the grave and worried expression in Ardyn's face since he saw the code, which couldn't mean a good thing.

"We have to talk about this alone. If you tell your friends afterwards, I don't care. But I would prefer to talk in private first."

"Deal."


	2. The truth?

Nobody knew where the monsters came from, but the hunters assumed the tremors coming from the meteor made them run amok and attack the nearby gas station. Luckily no one was severely hurt and technicians from Exineris were fast to arrive before it was dark to get the lights working again.

Looking over the chaos, the attack caused and the amount of people, Ignis turned to the others. They all looked a bit bruised but not bad enough.

"I suggest we drive over to the next station to rest there. It's not far and less cramped, I would prefer sleeping in more than a sleeping bag tonight."

"I can go with that." Noctis agreed, already looking pretty tired. He already felt another headache coming.

Ignis turned to Ardyn, who was standing a bit aside but with his head turned to show that he was listening. "Are you alright with this? It might not be a good idea to drive into the crater at night anyway."

"Oh don't worry about me." Ardyn said, "Today was more exciting than a man my age could deal with so I would be more than happy to rest for a bit."

Prompto looked over to Ardyn and flexed his right hand. He couldn't think of much else since he had that short talk with Ardyn. He wanted to hear what he knew so badly. The lager man turned his head to look at Prompto, gaze wandering down to the blond's wrist for a moment. When he looked up to meet Prompto's eyes again, he gave him a short nod and turned around to walk in the direction of his car.

"Shall we, then?"

* * *

It wasn't a long drive over to the next station but when they arrived it was already dark. Ignis insisted on them all eating at least something and so they sat mostly in silence, halfheartedly chewing some fast food. Noctis was the first to give up, headaches getting near unbearable. Ignis and Gladio followed after a short while.

"What about you?" Gladio looked over his shoulder at Prompto. The blond looked up and held up his camera he was fiddling with for a while now. "Gonna go through the pictures I took today." He said, voice as cheerful as ever, "Won't be too long, I promise."

Gladio nodded. He threw a short glance over to Ardyn who was sitting next to the blond, looking like he was deep in thoughts. When he felt Gladio's eyes on him he looked up and smiled.

"Shall I promise as well?"

Gladio snorted and couldn't hide a short smile. Ardyn's help had been a good help, he had to admit that. And maybe – just maybe – the only reason his alarm bells were still low-key ringing was the thought of their meeting in Galdin. He shook his head and climbed in the trailer, leaving the two of them alone.

Prompto stared at the door without moving and listened intently for any noise that came from inside the trailer. Everything was silent and he eventually turned to Ardyn, noticing he was looking in the same direction. His eyes focused on Prompto's and the blond took that as an indication.

Hesitating for a few seconds he opened his wristband and put his hand on the desk so his code was visible in the dim light.

"Tell me. Please." He said in a low voice, still worried to wake one of his friends again, "I need to know."

Ardyn looked down on Prompto's wrist with an expression the blond couldn't construe. The silence and Ardyn's stare lingered until Prompto pulled his hand away, hiding the code under his wristband again. Was it a mistake? Why was Ardyn so silent?

He jumped a bit when Ardyn moved. He stood up and walked a few steps away to look up at the dark sky.

"That code," He finally began talking, "it's from Niflheim."

Prompto's mouth went dry. "What do you..."

"It was a project some scientists had twenty or so years ago." Ardyn went on, "I don't know how exactly they did it, I'm not in the position to know. But what I recall is them trying to reproduce soldiers. You know the Magitech units?"

"They're attacking us everywhere." Prompto said with a slight nod, throwing away his vigilance completely without thinking.

"Some of them are machines." Ardyn went on, slowly walking back over to him. "But there are also those who are...somewhat human."

"Somewhat?"

"Would rather call them 'Killing Machines', I guess."

Prompto had to take a deep breath to let that sink in. He stared down at his hands, now shaking slightly.

"It is not my intention to scare you." Ardyn said, sitting down next to Prompto again, "But you wanted to know."

"And...they all have this code?"

Ardyn looked over Prompto for a moment. He looked shaken. And then still, he kept asking.

"They do." He said, "I've seen it and yours looks just like those codes. Their bodies are human but it seems like their souls are long gone. Only doing what they're told, the code making their bodies act on their own. That is as far as my knowledge goes. And from what I've seen. MTs can only fight or stand still, there is nothing in between."

"Then why am I not like that?" Prompto finally found his voice again "I have...a personality, I act on my own free will."

"Because it is not activated." Ardyn said with a sigh, "It's in your genetic code, you know? This urge to kill everything that threatens you. And no one knows when this switch will be turned over. Or by what. I can't tell either, I'm no scientist for that matter."

The silence that fell between them was far too loud. His own heartbeat was too loud.

"Does that mean," He said, voice barely audible,"that I'm...that I'm dangerous? For Noct and the others?"

Ardyn looked down, holding his head so the rim of his hat covered his eyes, hid his expression. Then he reached out and placed a finger on Prompto's wristband, right where the code sat.

"It's all in there." He pulled his hand away leaving a light tingle where his finger had been. "And you might become a grave danger, yes. Maybe not now or tomorrow. Maybe I am totally wrong about all of this, maybe I misread everything. But maybe there will come a day where you become one of them because something activates."

Prompto's hand was clamped around his wrist the whole night. He didn't remember how he got inside the trailer, when he lied down, it was all a blur. The only thing he could think of was what Ardyn told him. That he was a monster. Or could become one.

He wasn't sure if he'd slept at all or just forgot time while staring at the ceiling when he heard movement near him and two low voices he identified as Ignis and Gladio, he looked over to one of the small windows and saw light peek through the blinds. Was this all just a dream?

He stayed still for a while longer, eyes closed, so there wouldn't be awkward questions about why he was already awake. The two men had left the trailer and he heard them talking with Ardyn outside. His voice sounded normal and for all he could make out, they were talking about their journey to the crater, nothing else. Why would he anyway? Prompto had made him promise not to tell them. He didn't want them to know. At least not yet.

He was about to sit up when Gladio came back in.

"Well, that's for number one, come on up, Ignis got ya breakfast." He said with a smile, then walked over to Noctis who had wrapped himself tightly in his blanket. Still groggy, Prompto put on the best happy-face he could muster to hide the fact that he wanted nothing more than staying in bed until he found a solution to his newest problem. He regretted that talk with Ardyn.

The latter sat next to Ignis, seemingly unfazed by their talk last night, giving Prompto a friendly nod when he joined them.

"We will set out again shortly." Ignis said, but added with a glance over to Noctis who just stumbled out of the trailer looking a bit like Prompto felt, "Or shall I say as soon as his highness is somewhat awake?"

After a while of talking about different things, the blond started feeling a bit better, his old self showing itself again. No need to be scared, right? Nothing ever happened with his code, he never felt anything. Maybe Ardyn was wrong. He wanted this to be wrong.

* * *

"Damn it."

"I've never heard you curse that much, Iggy." Prompto said with a weak laugh. This possibly wasn't the moment to joke around but Prompto couldn't help it. He had to so he wouldn't freak out. Titan was towering over them, eyes locked on something further down which he assumes were Gladio and Noctis. At least they were alive. But now Ignis and Prompto had to find a way down to them before they were getting smashed by the giant.

When they finally found a way down that wouldn't break their necks, Ignis looked up and froze. There were Niflheim soldiers and airships everywhere above them, aiming something that looked like giant harpoons at Titan. That only made him more mad. Ignis started sprinting down the path they found. Prompto was about to follow when his right arm cramped painfully for a few seconds. Gripping it with his left he stood still and stared down at his arm. The muscles relaxed again and he was able to move it normally, though there was still a dull pain pulsing through it. He turned his hand to look at his wristband. Still in place, covering the tattoo but he knew it was there.

"Prompto!" Ignis' voice pulled him out of his thoughts again and he followed, arm still tingling.

There wasn't much time to think about it when they joined back with Noctis and Gladio, Titan's hand hovering dangerously close above them. It wasn't much the three of them could do other than keep away from the swiping stone hand and attack from a distance, but Noctis was impressive, fighting like never before. The blond couldn't help but stare for a moment. His friend never looked so focused and ready.

A hand on his shoulder made him jump and he looked over to see Ignis, holding up a blue glowing orb. Right, they had talked about that. Using ice magic to help immobilize Titan. They could at least be a little help with this idea, right?

Oh and how it helped. Only now everything around them was crumbling down and they had no chance to get out.

"Need a hand?"

They all looked up from where the voice came to see Ardyn standing in one of the Niflheim airships. He made a hurrying gesture to get them to move again.

"I had to ask a few favors for that so would you please move before they make me regret asking?"

None of them thought about it much longer. Not wanting to get buried alive they all jumped in and Ardyn hurried to the front of the ship to take care they all got out of there.

Was Prompto imagining it or did Ardyn give him a worried look when he walked by? Looking around the blond noticed the ship was mainly empty with the exception of a group of maybe ten MTs standing on one side without moving. Curiosity got the better of him and he walked over to look at them. He never could get a good look when fighting. He was studying their motionless faces when another jolt made his right arm stiffen and it was hard to not make a noise and alarm the others. Looking down, he saw his hand shaking slightly. He stuffed it into his pocket and tried to act normal, looking over his shoulder to see what the others were doing.

Noctis was sitting on the floor, visibly exhausted with Ignis next to him looking him over while talking to Gladio. Feeling a presence near him he turned to the other side to see Ardyn standing next to him with a strange look.

"What?" The blond said, maybe a bit more aggressive than he had planned to. Ardyn didn't say anything, but his eyes wandered down to the hand in his pocket, then up to face him again.

Getting the silent question, Prompto looked away.

"I'm okay." He lied, "Where are you taking us anyway?"

"If you say so." Ardyn said under his breath and then louder so the others could hear him too, "I can take you wherever you like, just say the word."

They looked at each other for a moment before Ignis took over, seeing Noctis was about to pass out and Gladio being unsure where to go next, he opted for the Chocobo Post, thinking that this might be the safest place now with it being rather hidden.

"I will make sure you'll arrive there save and sound." Ardyn said, leaving them alone again.

"We should rest for the time being." Ignis said, making himself comfortable, Gladio doing the same on the other side of Noctis, who already seemed to be half asleep. Prompto was about to walk over to them when it happened again. His right hand tensed and formed a fist without him wanting to and the shaking slowly took over his whole arm. He swiftly turned around, facing the lifeless MTs again, cradling his shaking arm against his chest so the others hopefully wouldn't see it. Everything that was said the night before came back to him, every word Ardyn said. Why now? Was it happening because he was inside one of their aircrafts? What was he supposed to do now?

Ardyn's voice made him jump but he didn't dare to turn towards him as long as his arm was doing things on his own.

"We are going down now. You will have to walk a bit though because this thing is too big to land right at their door."

"It will suffice." Ignis said, getting up, "You have our thanks, Ardyn. You have saved us."

"Only problem remaining will be your car." Gladio said while helping Noctis get back on is feet.

"You are welcome. It was actually quite fun to travel with you." Ardyn said with a smile. Turning to Gladio he added, "I will try my best to help you with that issue as well. Maybe I can provide some information later."

The bay door was already opening when Ardyn turned to Prompto, giving him a curious look.

"What is that for?" He asked nodding his head towards the blond's chest where he still had his arm pressed against.

Looking down Prompto gasped in shock when he looked at his gun. When had he summoned it? Why? Hastily dismissing it he turned away from Ardyn, trying to get his now violently shaking arm under control again.

"It's nothing." He said through gritted teeth. This was starting to hurt. "I'm just...tired I guess."

"If you say so." Ardyn said with a sigh, "Will you tell the-"

"There is nothing to tell." Prompto interrupted him, a bit startled of how irritated he sounded. "There is...nothing." He said again in a calmer tone, "Thanks for your help, Ardyn."

With his hands on his back Ardyn watched Prompto jogging after the others, rubbing over his right arm a few times to calm his tensing muscles. His lips curled to a smile and he chuckled slightly.

"If...you say so. My dear Prompto. Watch out who you lie to."


	3. Hurried decisions

The shaking calmed down as the distance to the airship grew but Prompto couldn't stop thinking of it. Why did it happen all of a sudden? Something like this never happened before.

The day was still young, but after that fight none of them were interested in doing anything other than lie down and sleep. Especially Noctis who had to be kept upright by Ignis most of their way to the Chocobo Post. Prompto was lying on his side, watching his right hand which was lying more or less relaxed on the mattress. Though the heavy shaking had stopped, there were still slight tremors running through it every few minutes. It felt weird. It didn't hurt but he could feel that something was happening inside his arm.

He started opening and closing his hand, feeling the tingle it created in his wrist. His movements became slower until he opened his hand again, watching the little white spark in his palm.

"Iggy."

Ignis was always the easiest to wake up and so, even Prompto's voice was barely audible, he lifted his head a bit to show that he was awake.

"Is something the matter?" He asked, still sounding like half asleep.

"Iggy." Prompto said again, this time a bit louder, "My arm feels strange."

"Why does your-" Ignis stopped mid-sentence, when he turned around and propped himself up on his elbow to face Prompto, only to stare directly into the barrel of a gun. "Prom?" His head snapped back and he fell back on his pillow.

Prompto's ears were ringing from the loud gunshot in the small room. The tingling in his arm was getting worse. Jerked awake by the commotion, Gladio was already clambering out of his bed.

"Prompto, what the hell? Wha-" Another shot. Gladio's body tensed up and then slumped forward.

Groaning he tried to get up again, his arms already too weak to push his body back up. Prompto aimed again, his head this time. This time he fell for good.

"Prom?" That voice belonged to Noctis. The blond turned around slowly, looking now directly at the last of the three. He looked scared, not moving, only staring at him. Prompto was closer to the door of the trailer, so the only way to escape was cut off. Noctis moved slowly backwards, having no other way to go but soon he reached the back wall. Prompto followed slowly. His arm was still tingling but it felt more soothing now, steadying his hand as he pointed the gun at his best friend. "Prompto, please, this isn't you."

Was he ever?

"Please put that down."

Why should he.

"Prompto, no!"

He pulled the trigger.

With a loud gasp he jerked upright, the sound of the gunshot still ringing in his head. It took a few minutes for him to calm his breath enough so he could concentrate on something else. Looking down at his trembling hands he saw no weapon. He couldn't tell whether his wrist was still tingling, his whole body was shaking far too much. Then the dreaded looks to his sides. Ignis. Lying on his side, his back to Prompto. The blond had to strain his eyes in the darkness but he could make out the slightest movement, showing him he was breathing.

"Just asleep." He whispered to calm himself.

He could hear Gladio's breath, lightly snoring from his other side and Noctis right next to him, chest raising and falling in a calm manner. Alive. Prompto chocked down a sob.

Carefully he climbed out of his bed, trying not to wake anyone. He couldn't let this happen. He still saw his friend's limp bodies lying there, Noctis' voice begging to put his gun down. But he didn't budge, not even thinking about it, just did what he had to, obeying the orders that were given to him by a silent voice in his head. That mustn't happen. Never, he wouldn't let it. Silently Prompto left the trailer. Breathing in the cool night's air, he stood in silence for a moment, looking up at the dark sky, then he started walking.

When he left the safety of the lights and stepped into the forest he stopped. What was he doing? He couldn't just run away. Turning around, he looked back to the trailer, sitting there in silence. It all looked so nice and calm. Maybe they would understand. Prompto made a hesitant step back into the direction of the trailer, trying to convince himself, that it wouldn't be bad, that they wouldn't hate him for what he was.

The pain came so sudden that he nearly fell to his knees. It felt like a jolt of electricity running up his right arm and when he looked down he felt his insides get cold. His gun was again in his hand. He hadn't intentionally summoned it, he was sure of it. As soon as he dismissed it his hand started shaking again, opening on it's own and there was the gun again. Prompto felt sicker with every time he tried again. The weapon came back, it was as if his hand had a life on it's own. Gripping his right wrist with his other hand he slowly walked backwards, panic rising as the images of his dream came back. Gladio straining to get up again, the surprised look on Ignis' face and Noctis' pleading voice. None of that had phased him, he had pulled the trigger without hesitation.

"No."

Shaking his head he turned around. He dismissed his gun again, only to hold it in his hand again after seconds.

"I won't kill them." He muttered as he walked briskly through the darkness, not thinking about any dangers that could be around him. "Can't kill them if I'm not around, right?" He laughed shakily but it wasn't even convincing to himself. His walk turned into a run and eventually a full sprint, fleeing from something he couldn't escape. He fell a few times, slipped and stumbled until he lost every sense of direction, but he kept running. The only thing the blond could think about was getting as far away from his friends as possible.

Prompto stopped when it felt like his lungs were about to burst. His whole body was shaking and his breaths were shallow but breathing in deeper hurt too much. Forcing his legs to move again, he kept walking. The sky was beginning to turn orange with the rising sun. How long has he been running?

Following a small path he hoped it would take him somewhere where he could rest a bit. He avoided thinking about where he actually should go, not knowing where he was in general. Still not far enough, he thought. Looking down his right arm he noticed that his gun was not there and the shaking had subsided, but his hand still looked tense and it felt weird moving it. He stuffed it in his pocket and tried to think of something else, fearing that testing it by calling and dismissing his gun again might be a bit much just now.

After walking for another twenty minutes or so in silence, only listening to the noises around him, aware that there could be beasts around everywhere, his attention was drawn to a few buildings not too far away. He could see people walking around. The blond looked at his right arm again, thinking it over for a minute, before he started walking towards the buildings.

It turned out to be a farm of some sorts, the people running around were carrying crates over to a truck. Prompto decided to stay hidden and snuck around the buildings, staying near the fence and observing everything. Then he saw the truck. It was a big one and the workers seemed to be nearly done loading it. The blond stared at it for another few minutes before he made a decision, readying himself to run. He waited a moment, watching two guys putting in another crate, and when he felt that they were far enough away he sprinted over, pulled the tarp aside and jumped in.

Inside it smelled like earth and fresh vegetables. The crates were roughly stacked and it was easy for Prompto to hide further in the back so he wouldn't be seen. A few more times the truck shook slightly when another crate was loaded in, then he heard voices and eventually a car door closing. The truck came to life with a shudder and Prompto felt it moving. A few minutes into the drive he felt safe enough to come out of his hiding spot to inspect the crates. Most of them were filled with fresh fruits or vegetables which made his stomach rumble. There were two crates near the entrance filled with smaller boxes. Their smell made Prompto's mouth water and he opened one of the boxes to find jerky inside. He contemplated for a moment before giving out a small whimper and grabbing some of the food.

Already chewing, he went through some of the other crates, stuffing his pockets with about everything he could. When he was done he crawled back into his hiding place, feeling incredibly bad. He had just stolen food. Some of it already eaten so he couldn't even give it back. For a moment he was pondering. Should he put everything back? But he needed food, now realizing that he hadn't taken anything with him. Feeling his pockets and finding only food and some loose money he realized that he hadn't even bothered to get his Phone. He tried to swallow the lump forming in his throat as everything hit him. He blindly ran away, didn't even know where this truck was going and had no option to contact his friends.

He pulled his legs up, wrapping his arms around them and tried to breathe steadily. What should he do now? Jump out and try to walk back? Maybe he would find a place where he could make a call? His right hand twitched and the blond remembered why he made this stupid decision.

Watching his hand he noticed that it was mainly his index finger, twitching like pulling a trigger.

"Stop it." He said, forming a fist and holding it in place with the other hand. His heart started racing as his arm cramped for a moment, before relaxing again. Slowly he let go of his fist, watching his hand shake for a moment before completely calming down.

"I won't kill them." He mumbled, scooting further into the corner and curling up again, "Won't kill anyone. You can't make me." Trying to calm and comfort himself with his words he kept repeating them, effectively lulling himself to sleep as the hours went by.

* * *

Prompto was roughly awoken by being grabbed and pulled by his collar, a loud voice screaming something he couldn't make out while he was still half asleep. He felt being dragged over the surface of the truck's bed before feeling nothing for a second, then he landed on hard concrete. Groaning he tried to get up but a big hand grabbed a fistful of hair at the back of his head and pulled him to his feet, making him gasp in pain.

"Dumbest idea you could have, lad, I don't take kindly to stowaways." He barked at Prompto's face while shaking the hand he still had in the blond's hair, holding him up far enough to make him stand only on his toes.

"Please, I-I'm sorry." Prompto stammered, "I just wanted-"

"You wanted _what_ , boy?" The man growled, bringing Prompto's face very close to his. He reeked of cigarettes. "Food for free? Hitch a ride? Well done, you got all that, little thief. But guess what: you'll still have to pay."

Prompto felt something cold press against his throat and stopped moving immediately.

"Gonna make you pay for every single thing you stole." He drawled with a sick grin spreading on his face. That was when Prompto's fight or flight mode set in. He grabbed the hand with the knife, blocking it from pressing further against his throat and kicked him as hard as he could between the legs. The man doubled over, letting go of Prompto who wasted no time and turned around to run. Only to slam into another guy. He hadn't noticed the crowd around them, men and women, all looking like hunters.

Cursing under his breath, Prompto pushed past them, dodging hands that were trying to grab him and started sprinting as soon as no one was near him. He heard voices calling him to stop and over all of them the wild screaming and cursing of the of the truck driver. Prompto kept running, noticing too late that his only way was a tunnel right in front of him. But there was no chance of turning back with all those people behind him and so he kept running, sending a prayer to the gods that the tunnel wasn't long.

A gunshot made him flinch and the bullet ricocheted from the tunnel walls, miraculously missing him. His heart dropped when he heard an engine roaring. Now it was over, the guy would just run him over and he would be done for. Another bullet whizzed past him and he forced his aching legs to go faster. A waft of fresh air raised his hopes sky high and he darted sideways without thinking where he would land.

At first there was only air, his foot didn't connect with the ground right away, then his body was assaulted by millions of sharp spikes. He rolled down a steep hill, through trick underbrush and when the ground finally evened out again and stopped his fall, he was back on his feet in no time. He heard more shots behind him, but they were blindly fired in the darkness of the night. How long where they driving that it had become night again?

Wanting to put more distance between himself and his pursuer, Prompto kept running, zigzagging between the trees until he clambered up another hill. When his legs were about to give in he found some big boulders he accepted as a good place to take a rest. He should be safe here for a moment, couldn't even hear that guy anymore. Collapsing to his knees he tried to steady his breath but something wasn't right. There was a noise, too loud and too near. Prompto held his breath.

Breathing.

Something was breathing and it wasn't far away and from the sound of it, it should be huge.

Looking around, Prompto froze, everything inside him seemed to be made of ice. Only a few yards away the blond could make out something big. He didn't dare to swallow while he stared at the form of a gigantic sleeping Behemoth in front of him.


	4. Where to now?

Prompto tried to calm his breathing as he stared at the massive shape of the Behemoth. It seemed to have its back turned to him and after endless minutes of listening to the even breaths he could finally convince himself that it was sleeping. Very slowly, Prompto got to his feet again, eyes always on the beast, watching it for the slightest move that would indicate it waking up.

He looked around for a moment to look for the best way to go and decided he'd rather walk away from the Behemoth's head. From what he could make out he was in a small clearing made by the Behemoth, trees toppled over to make it more spacious. Prompto thought back to the day they fought Deadeye near the Chocobo farm. That one was already big but the one that was sleeping there seemed to be monstrous. Another reason for the blond to step carefully, feeling around a bit with each foot before putting weight on it.

Nearly there. He could see the line of trees not far from him now. A few steps more and he would reach it. Maybe not complete safety, but he'd feel a lot safer than out in the open, sleeping monster-behemoth right next to him. He took a deep breath and made a few quick steps, breathing out when he was hiding behind a tree. Listening intently, he could still hear the steady breath, no sign of the behemoth waking up.

"Good." He whispered to himself before walking on, still aware where he stepped. Now, with the adrenaline slowly dissipating, he became aware of other noises around him. Crickets, frogs and some night birds in the distance. It smelled like wet earth.

'What am I doing?' He thought to himself, just now becoming fully aware of his situation. He didn't even know where he was. He had to get back. He was jerked out of his thoughts when, after another step, his foot didn't instantly connect with the ground but sank down, wetness filling his shoe as he now stood knee-deep in water.

"Shit." He cursed under his breath, trying to keep his balance. When he got out of the water, he pondered for a moment, looking back in the direction he came, before flicking on his flashlight, careful not do shine it in the direction of the behemoth. Now finally seeing again, he found himself at the edge of what looked like a swamp. "Well, great." He sighed, walking up and down the shore a bit, not seeing any other way. "No way I'm going back to that big guy."

With a sigh, he decided to walk along the shore for a while, just to see where it would lead him, secretly hoping to find a haven along the way.

A loud crash made him jump and he looked back to where it came from. Hearing a low growl he felt his insides turn to ice and instantly sped up his steps, praying internally that it wouldn't come in his direction. He stifled a gasp when he lost his footing again, stepping into air before meeting cold water again. This time he kept walking, wading through the wetness while listening behind him occasionally.

He heard the behemoth walking through the bushes like it were right behind him, deep growls sending shivers through his body.

Tying to concentrate on where he stepped, Prompto forced himself to look forward, dodging low hanging branches that seemed to come out of nowhere. Then, suddenly, he was at the edge of the treeline, water nearly waist deep. Stopping, Prompto looked around for a moment. Before him, the swamp opened up, looking almost like a lake, but patches of tall grass here and there told otherwise. The blond made a few steps back, not fond of running through the open for everything to be seen.

That move didn't come too soon. To his right he heard the behemoth's deep bellowing, waking and scaring off some birds in the near trees. Remembering his flashlight, he flicked it off again and stepped behind the next tree. He didn't need to wait long, soon after he hid, the behemoth slowly came walking out from the trees not too far away, head down, nose skimming mere inches above the water's surface. It didn't look like it was drinking, but smelling something. Looking for something.

For a moment, Prompto could only stare from where he was behind the tree. The sky had opened up a bit more and a half moon shone its light onto the swamp and the huge beast, giving the whole scene a surreal feeling. Prompto caught himself thinking, that if it wasn't so damn dangerous, he would have loved to take a shot of this. It looked so perfect.

The behemoth's head went up again and turned slightly to the side. The monster was now looking in the general direction of where Prompto was, not yet right at him. Hoping he had pulled his head back in time the blond pressed his back against the tree and tried to calm his racing heart. Had it noticed him?

The sloshing of water indicated that it started moving again and Prompto's heart dropped when he realized, that it was walking in his direction, heavy steps getting louder until he could feel its presence behind him. Not moving, he listened to the behemoth slowly inhaling as it scanned the air. For a moment it was dead silent, then he heard a low guttural growl and it felt like is was right behind him, could feel the vibration in his chest. Should he make a run for it? As long as he stayed between the trees he could slow the behemoth down at least a bit.

His thoughts were interrupted, when something huge appeared in his peripheral vision and, turning his head, Prompto looked right at the Behemoth's head. No time for thinking anymore, the blond pushed himself away from the tree and started running. Stumbling through knee-deep water, he tried to get further back between the trees, hoping to slow his pursuer down but it didn't seem to even notice them, running straight through, uprooting everything in its way.

When the water became more shallow Prompto picked up speed and in a euphoric rush he thought he might be able to get away somehow. Then the trees vanished and before he could even think about stopping or changing direction he was running through an open area. The heavy thumping passed him and then the behemoth was in front of him, about to jump and ready to kill.

That was when Prompto's flight mode turned to fight.

Out of reflex he let himself fall on his back, using his momentum and the wet, muddy surface to slide towards the monster and summoned his gun. It was hard to aim in the darkness, but it wasn't the first time for Prompto and the behemoth was big enough so he would at least hit it somewhere. Aiming at it's head, he squeezed the trigger rapidly a few times, hitting his mark. The behemoth flinched and roared in pain, shaking it's head to get rid of the stinging bullets.

Prompto knew he wouldn't do much damage with these few shots but it only had to be enough to distract it for him to get away. Scrambling to his feet he started running again, when something big hit him. He flew through air, losing every sense of direction for a moment when he landed and rolled over the ground. Coughing, he tried to get on his feet again but the dizziness let him fall back on his side again. The behemoth stomped towards him with an angry roar, bleeding from multiple wounds in its face. Not wanting to simply give up, Prompto summoned his gun again. At least he would go down with a fight.

He was about to shoot, aiming at the head of the approaching behemoth, when his arm seized up painfully. His cramping hand pulled the trigger but the shot went in the air, hitting nothing.

Why now?

Grabbing his arm, Prompto curled up and tried to regain control but it only got worse. Then everything around him became unbearably bright and loud. There was a strong wind and something that sounded like shooting, along with the roaring of the behemoth. When he opened his eyes again and looked up he knew why his arm acted up again. Magitek airships were hovering above him, soldiers standing on the open bay doors were shooting at the monster, forcing it so retreat step by step.

"Prompto!"

Prompto's head jerked around. He knew that voice. Another airship was behind him, closer to the ground and flood light on Prompto. That explained the sudden brightness. There were more soldiers coming out of that one but also another person, who was walking towards him. Prompto recognized the shape of the man, not able to see much more of him because of the bright light.

"Ardyn." He breathed out, voice possibly not even audible through all the commotion around them. Without saying anything, Ardyn pulled him up, holding him steady on his shoulders for a moment.

"Can you walk?"

Prompto gave a shaky nod. "Think so."

"Then let me get you out of here." Ardyn put a hand on his back and gave the blond a soft push towards the Magitek ship. Prompto was a bit hesitant, the memory of the last time he was in one of those still fresh. On the other hand, Ardyn could bring him back to safety, right? Maybe he would give him a ride back to the Chocobo Post to meet with the others. To explain everything.

While walking, Prompto looked over to the behemoth. It was lying on the ground, but still breathing. Another much bigger Magitek airship was hovering over the beast, lowering something that looked like a cage down on the monster.

"What are they doing?"

"Catching it." Ardyn answered after glancing over himself. "We are to look for specimen like that one to secure them and take them to our scientists in Niflheim. Why and for what I don't know and if I did, I might not be allowed to tell you."

"I must admit, I'm surprised to find you all the way out here." Ardyn said when they entered the ship. He had brought Prompto in the back corner where he could sit down in a bench and offered him a bottle of water. Watching the blond drink using mostly his left hand he nodded towards his right side.

"How is that arm of yours doing? Still 'nothing wrong' with it?"

Feeling caught, Prompto leaned back a bit and sighed. Of course. Ardyn knew that there would be problems, he was the one who told him.

"It got worse again when you showed up." He admitted silently, "I think it's something within these ships. Or the MTs."

"That's what I thought. I'm sorry."

Prompto shook his head. "It's alright. I will deal with it, there will be a way." He forced himself to think positive, pushing the memories of his dream as far away as possible.

"Ardyn, uhm...is it possible for you to...to take me back? Back to my friends, I mean. It was stupid of me not to tell them. I'm sure we can work something out if I let them help."

Happy to get that out of his system he looked up to Ardyn and his face fell a bit. The lager man's look was full of sorrow and after a few seconds of eye contact he turned his head a bit to look to the side.

"I think this may not be a good idea, Prompto."

There was silence for endless minutes while Prompto tried to process what Ardyn just said. Why wouldn't it be a good idea? They were his friends, they would help him, right? They wouldn't judge him. Right?

Feeling Prompto's eyes on him, Ardyn looked at him again.

"Yesterday, when you suddenly vanished," He started, "They came to me, asking it I have seen you. I was still down at the slough. Obviously I didn't know about you vanishing all of a sudden but they kept asking. Your friends aren't dumb, you know that, right? They noticed something was wrong – as did I when I picked you up from the disc, by the way."

Prompto swallowed down the lump building in his throat. Ardyn sounded so serious. He looked down at his hands, left tightly closed around the right, which was still shaking, his whole arm was slightly tingling like the last time he was in a Magitek ship.

"Did you tell them?" He asked, surprised at how weak his voice sounded.

Ardyn didn't answer right away but then nodded with a deep sigh. "I don't appreciate lying." He said and turned away to walk a few steps to one side.

"I was hoping they would understand. After all, you are their friend and even within that few hours I spent time with your group, I never..." He stopped and sighed again, visibly struggling with the right words as he turned back to him.

"They didn't take that information very kindly."

Prompto's breath hitched. That couldn't be true. Why would they – no. Why wouldn't they be angry. He stared at his feet, eyes going in and out of focus.

"That can't be." He whispered, voice sounding hoarse from his suddenly dry throat.

Ardyn stepped a bit closer and eventually sat down next to him.

"I'd rather not tell you what they said. Only if you really want me to, that is." He said, fiddling with his hat. "They made it clear that they don't want to see you again. I'm so sorry, boy."

"So you weren't here because you were looking for me?" Prompto asked. For a moment, when he saw Ardyn coming towards him, something hopeful inside him let him think that he was there on behalf of his friends. That they had asked him to keep a look out for him from the sky. That they were worried and looking for him.

"I truly wish I could tell you otherwise but no, that isn't the reason I'm here." Ardyn said, leaning back against the wall. "We were following some rumors about a giant behemoth in the area, which, coincidentally, was the exact one out there that was trying to kill you."

"Oh."

Prompto felt empty. He should have told them. Surely they wouldn't have been angry had he not hidden this damn code all the time. Maybe if he had asked Ardyn to tell him everything about it while the others were still awake. Find out this secret together.

He shook his head, drawing in a shaky breath. His ears were ringing, Ardyn's words repeating themselves over and over.

"A gil for your thoughts." Ardyn said with a half-smile, but Prompto only shook his head again, not trusting his voice to actually be of use. Not that he had anything to say anyway. There was nothing, just a big void inside his head.

"Stay the night." Ardyn's soft voice and a hand on his shoulder pulled him out of the darkness just enough to recognize what he was saying. "It's not much I can offer but I guess it's still better than sleeping out there. Let's talk more tomorrow."

Prompto nodded.

Ardyn stayed a few more minutes, sitting with the blond in silence, before he was called over by someone and left Prompto alone, his promise of being back in a few minutes falling on deaf ears.


	5. Aimless

The rest of the night was a blur. Prompto remembered Ardyn coming back for a while, but as far as he could recall, they didn't talk, just sat there in silence. Prompto wasn't in the mood to talk, or do anything in general. The more what Ardyn told him, the darker it became around him. There was no reason to doubt what the man said, why would he lie? Why would the others still accept him, knowing what he was? The years of friendship with Noctis – gone. Everything was gone. And there was no reason to hold it against them, he could have told them so long ago. There would have been no need to lie if he did so.

His senses came back when he felt cool air on his face and he realized that he was standing outside the Magitek ship. They were still in the area where he was saved by Ardyn, but all the soldiers retreating back into the ships indicated that they were making ready to leave.

"What will you do now?" Ardyn's voice behind him startled the blond. He turned only half around and looked at a point somewhere above Ardyn's head.

"I don't know. Go...somewhere, I guess."

"You are welcome to stay."

Prompto licked his lips nervously and made a small step away from Ardyn. The thought of staying scared him. The whole time he stayed with him there was always the strange feeling in his arm, a tingling, swelling up to a painful sensation every now and then, the uncontrolled twitching.

Seeing his nervousness, Ardyn added, "You could find out more about your origins. I would be more than willing to help and I can assure, you won't become like them." He nodded in the general direction of some Magitek soldiers, "You could learn to live with it. To use it."

It was tempting.

Prompto made another step back, twitching hand behind his back. It was so damn tempting, but then again, Niflheim was the enemy. Because of them all of this had happened. Ardyn's words were nice, and he only wanted to help, but the thought of losing his mind and becoming one of them. To turn, even if not on purpose, it didn't sit well with him.

Finally shaking his head as an answer, he forced a smile on his face.

"I think I'd rather not. N-no offense."

"None taken."

Shifting awkwardly, Prompto wasn't sure what else to say. Ardyn broke the silence and handed him a bag with a light smirk.

"At least take this, will you?" He said, folding his hands behind his back. Seeing Prompto's confused look, he explained, "Dried stuff mainly, fruits, jerky and the like. As well as water and something resembling a first aid kit, I forgot the reason why I packed this, honestly."

"Wait. I-is this yours?" Feeling a bit embarrassed, Prompto tried to shove the bag back in Ardyn's hands, but he only made a few steps back, raising his hands.

"It's alright, you need it more than I do. I'm safe in here, whatever I need, I can get it. You on the other hand can't snap your fingers and someone gets you whatever you desire out there. Or did you change your mind about my offer?"

For a moment, Prompto wasn't sure where he should place that humor of Ardyn. Should he just laugh, or was the larger man serious with his words. Deciding to stay on the serious side of things, he shook his head 'no' and opened the bag. He found plenty of food as well as some bandages and other things that 'resemble a first aid kit' as Ardyn put it.

"This is so much, Ardyn. Thank you, really."

The older man waved a hand.

"Just want to be nice. You've lost enough already."

"Yeah. I guess." He felt a pang in his chest thinking about the night before.

Ardyn pointed a hand towards some forested hills.

"If you keep heading in that direction, you will find a village. Saw it from the air, it shouldn't be further away than a few hours walking. Tiny place, but it's better than scampering aimlessly through the wilderness, maybe someone gives you a ride."

Looking in the pointed direction, Prompto gave a slight nod.

"I will see what I find there." He said, "Thanks, Ardyn. For everything."

"Don't mention it. And good luck."

Not wanting to make it too awkward, the blond started walking in the direction Ardyn had pointed out. One last time, he looked back, seeing Ardyn still standing where he stood before, looking in his direction. He waved his last goodbye, Ardyn answered in lifting his hand as well, then he turned around again and sped up his steps a bit to get out of sight before grabbing his right arm which was completely stiff by then.

* * *

Ardyn stayed where he was, friendly half-smile still in place, until Prompto vanished between the trees. Some of the ships were already in the process of lifting off. Holding his hat in place, Ardyn turned around and walked back inside, doors closing behind him.

Walking into the cockpit, he slightly rolled his eyes as he was greeted by an unhappy looking commander.

"Why did you let him leave?"

"Why shouldn't I? He didn't want to come with us."

"He could have been the perfect weapon! He knows all the princes weaknesses, that would have been the perfect advantage!"

The man made a few steps towards the chancellor, but stopped at the man's warning gaze. "Is this a game to you?"

Ardyn chuckled.

"Actually...yes. Yes, it is." He crossed his arms and turned slightly to look out of the window, smile never fading from his face. "Don't you love to scare little children until they're doing one irrational stupid thing after another?"

"Sir?"

"He is of no danger to us, most likely for him to die soon. Turning the most unstable of them against either them or himself was the goal and I do believe I won this match."

He leaned his head against the cool glass and looked down as different landscapes moved by. For a moment, his thoughts seemed to drift and his face looked almost peaceful. Then the smile reappeared and he lifted a hand, dark red magic swirling around it. The commander made a few steps back, opening his mouth to say something, but nothing came out, as Ardyn put a finger to his lips.

"No one said that I'm done playing, though." He said in a playful tone and closed his hand into a fist and the dark red around his hand became black.

* * *

Prompto couldn't stifle his scream anymore as his arm seized up painfully, forcing him to his knees. This was the worst cramp. Groaning, he tried to breathe through the pain and fought to get back to his feet. Why was it getting worse? He couldn't even hear the Magitek engines anymore, they were gone. Rubbing the length of his arm up and down for a minute until his muscles relaxed a bit, he decided to go on. First priority was to find that village. He could think about what he would do next when he was there.

He kept walking in the direction Ardyn had pointed him, wincing every time another wave of pain pulsed through his arm. But the longer he walked, the more he thought. About what happened. And what could happen.

Was it safe? He stopped. Was HE safe?

Looking down at his arm, the blond tried to move it, opened and closed his hand. It cooperated, but it felt strange. He began walking again, but his thoughts kept drifting away, unpleasant memories taking over. He had accidentally summoned his gun before. What if that happened when he was around people? What if were to shoot someone because he lost control?

He kept walking, but the dark thoughts got worse every minute. A few times, he tried to check the time, only to find his pockets empty. After being so distraught from his dream, he left without thinking and without taking anything with him. Including his phone and his camera. They were still with the others. Or maybe not.

He felt his heart drop a bit thinking about it. They possibly got rid of his stuff after they found out. Why shouldn't they, he was a monster.

When he felt wetness stinging in his eyes, he shook his head, trying to think of something else. Not now. Breaking down wouldn't help. Walking more briskly again, he followed a barely visible path, hoping it would lead somewhere. It didn't look like it was used often, but he guessed it was used by hunters every now and then. Thinking about hunters, he remembered the last night and couldn't control the shudder than ran through his body.

"Hope I'll never see that guy again." He mumbled to himself.

The sun was up high in the sky when the trees finally cleared a bit, and Prompto noticed that he went a bit too far to the left. On his right side, just down a hill, he could see buildings. There weren't many buildings, but Ardyn said it was a village, so Prompto wasn't surprised. But he could also see some cars. Maybe someone would drive him.

He stopped mid-step as his arm began shaking again.

"Where to, anyway?" He asked, no answer. Where should he go? Back to civilization? To be a danger for others? Was it even safe to go over there, to put innocent people in danger, not even knowing where he wanted to go?

He took a few steps back. "What should I do?" His voice sounded weak, even to him. Silence, birds in the distance. His breath hitched as he looked around. There was no one there, how could he know what was right? Another wave of pain made him double over with a groan. He grabbed his arm, pain still pulsing through it and felt a familiar weight in his right hand.

"No." He breathed out, knowing what it was without even looking at it. "Stop it...just stop it!"

He shook his head violently, trying to grab a clear thought, but it didn't work, he just felt more dizzy. Pain and fear were about to take over.

"I don't know what to do." He said through a sob, stumbling further backwards. The pain got worse and his arm went stiff again, gun still in a vice grip. He didn't even try to dismiss it, it would come back anyway. He would shoot people. He would kill and become one of them.

Without another thought, Prompto turned around and ran. He didn't even know where or from what he was fleeing, just that he had to get away. Somewhere. Anywhere. Just away from it.

He had to stop when his lungs felt like they were about to collapse. Trying to control his ragged breath, he fell to his knees, hands digging into wet earth. Though his right arm gave away after a moment of putting weight on it, fingers twitching as the gun he thought he dropped while running appeared again. Tears were streaming freely now.

Why didn't he ask for help? Maybe people would have helped. Maybe. His face twisted as his thoughts went to the bitter side again. Or maybe they would have chased him away.

He dismissed his gun. His arm seized up and he wanted nothing more than to curl up and wait until it was all over. He stared at his arm, at his wrist, where the code was hidden under the leather band. Then he looked around.

He had completely lost track of time and didn't know where he was. He just wanted it all to end. Forcing his shaking legs to carry him again, he stood up and kept walking in a random direction, everything was better than standing still, he could keep walking at least a bit. Feeling is going slightly uphill, he kept his gaze trained to the ground, watching how it changes from soft dark brown earth to harder soil and small stones. A few times he stopped and listened when he heard noises, possibly coming from creatures living in these woods, a few times he changed his direction a bit. He was lost already anyway, so why bother. Not that it was of any use to know where to go now.

After walking a while, he finally found something that could work. He picked up a flat stone with sharp edges. It looked like it had broken off a bigger boulder once. Testing the edges he decided that it was okay and sat down, finally giving his legs some rest.

For a while, Prompto just sat there, staring at the stone in his hands, turning it around every now and then. Then his head sank to his chest with a small and bitter laugh. He couldn't do it.

"I don't want to die yet."

But what else could he do? Where could he go?

His right hand twitched. He looked at it, the pain in his arm had receded to a tingle for now but the muscles in his hand kept spasming. Well. There was one thing he could do.

He changed his position, now sitting on his knees. He first pulled the glove off his right hand, after a short hesitation the wristband followed. For a moment, he only stared at the hated tattoo, the fine lines, the numbers. Then he put his hand down, pressing his palm on the ground and added some weight to keep it in place.

With his left he grabbed his new found weapon, remaining in this position for a moment. The tingle grew stronger and his fingers twitched more.

"Do it." He said to himself.

He lifted his left hand a bit more, his eyes still hefted on the code. Then he held his breath and let his hand whip down.

He nearly choked when he tried to stifle his scream, the pain shooting up his arm worse than the seizures before. Out of desperation he bit down on the collar of his vest when he yanked his hand to the side to cut right through the code. Staring down on the blood seeping out of the gash, he felt nausea growing but he tried to ignore it and repeated the procedure. And again. And another time. Sobbing uncontrollably now from the pain he stopped when he felt like he was about to faint. He didn't know if the code was still visible now, looking down on his mutilated wrist he only saw blood.

He let go of the bloody rock and dug around in Ardyn's bag, looking for some bandages, wrapping them around his bleeding wrist as tight as he could. For a moment, he just sat there and stared. Looked at the ground absorbing his blood, at the white bandage slowly getting dark red spots.

What had he done?

"Shit." He ground out between clenched teeth and buried his face in his hand. His right hand felt numb and he just left it where it was.

What should he do now? Soon it would be dark, he was still out in the middle of nowhere and now he was bleeding. Why in Eos did he do that? Daemons and other predators would smell him everywhere now.

Cradling his throbbing arm against his chest he fought against the fatigue and finally got back on his feet. His head swam and he felt like he was about to throw up. After standing still for a moment to adjust, he made a first, careful step. Then another. Feet were still working. Every few steps he whimpered when his arm was jostled too much by him stumbling. But he kept walking. Always keep moving. He hoped whatever would smell his blood would at least not get to him too soon when he just kept walking, maybe even running a bit when the pain was tolerable eventually.

"Just keep moving."


	6. His true self

**Let's see how Noctis and the others are doing. This is a tiny bit shorter than normal and I'm sorry for that.**

* * *

"Noct."

Noctis curled up further and pulled the blanked over his head, groaning when it was pulled back off.

"Noct wake up."

"Why?" He moaned, putting an arm over his eyes to block out the light. He felt still drained from the day before, the encounter with Titan being enough reason for him to basically sleep through the day.

"We can't find Prompto."

That sentence actually made the prince lift his arm and take a peek through one eye. Ignis' face hovered over him.

"It's the Chocobo Farm." He croaked, still a bit groggy, "Did you look in the stables?"

Ignis made a slightly annoyed noise but nodded.

"The stables, the shop, the close surroundings, even the race track. Please get up now, Noct, this is a serious matter."

Now a bit concerned, Noctis sat up and rubbed over his eyes to clear his vision.

"He can't be just gone, can he?" He asked, sliding to the edge of the bed as soon as Ignis gave him space to do so, "He's possibly hiding from us, taking photos of you looking for him, just for the laughs."

"Without his camera?"

He stopped mid-moving. Ignis turned a bit and pointed a hand in the direction of Prompto's bed.

The first thing he saw were ruffled sheets, which was nothing unusual, Prompto was a nervous sleeper. The next was his phone, half hidden under his pillow, and there was his camera, neatly stored on a small shelf near his bed.

"What?"

* * *

The sun burned down relentlessly on his throbbing head, but Noctis ignored it as much as was possible. Gladio came back empty handed as well. The three of them looked everywhere again. They asked people, stable hands, called his name. A few times Noctis caught himself with his phone in his hands, about to dial Prompto's number before he remembered. That was of no use.

He tucked Prompto's phone in his pocket. There were those rare – very rare – moments when Prompto actually wanted to be alone for a while. But the other times he always left a note, and he always kept his phone and camera on him, there was no way he would have left them sitting anywhere.

"You think they're still there?" Gladio asked as they were walking down the path they came up the night before. After Ardyn gave them a ride.

"I can't tell but wen can at least give it a try. None of us actually has his number, so we can just pray he hasn't left yet." Ignis sounded calm as always, but his facial expression was different now. just slightly, but knowing him for as long as he did, Noctis saw it. They all were worried.

When Gladio gave a short laugh, Noctis tore his eyes away from Ignis and looked in the direction the shield was already jogging in, reacting with a short smile himself. They were still there.

It made them all a bit uneasy, voluntarily walking towards a Magitek unit, but the MTs didn't even acknowledge them as they were walking towards the familiar figure of Ardyn. With his long strides, Gladio was the first to reach Ardyn, tapping him on the shoulder to get his attention.

Ardyn turned to first look at Gladio, then over to Noctis and Ignis who were coming closer. "Why hello there." He said with a happy smile, "I feel honored to meet you again, what can I help you with?"

Noctis' steps slowed a bit. Something about the lager man was setting him off this time, though he couldn't quite put the finger on it. Noticing the prince's hesitation, Ignis stepped forward.

"Apologies for rushing in like this, but we have a rather urgent matter. We can't find Prompto, have you seen him by any chance?" The adviser said in his polite way.

Ardyn cocked his head to one side, a strange smile on his lips.

"Have I seen who now?"

Ignis' mouth became a thin line after hearing this answer, and Gladio laughed nervously, patting Ardyn's shoulder. "You can't mean that, man." The shield said, "That's kind of a bad joke, you know."

Slowly, Ardyn turned his head to Gladio, who instantly took his hand from his shoulder and made a step back, feeling slightly alarmed now. "You haven't been drinking again, have you?" He asked, remembering their meeting at Galdin Quay, where he showed a similar behaviour.

Suddenly, Ardyn's face lit up as if he just had the nicest idea. "Oh, you mean that blond boy with the annoying voice and a fondness of shoving his camera in everyone's face?"

Dumbfounded silence. The delighted smile never faded from Ardyn's face.

Ignis took a deep breath through his nose before he answered. "I wouldn't use those words, but...yes, I think we mean the same person."

Ardyn shrugged a tad too happily for their taste. "Haven't seen him since the day before. Have you considered him being dead?"

Noctis made a step towards Ardyn, fists shaking in his growing anger. "What do you mean by that?" He snapped, fighting the urge to grab the larger man when he felt Ignis' hand on his shoulder, "What did you do to him?"

"Me? Nothing at all. I already told you, I haven't seen him."

"You were talking when you took us out of the crater." Ignis said, remembering the moment when Prompto and Ardyn stood together talking silently back in the Magitek ship.

"We did indeed, so what? Are you implying I told him something so bad it scared him away?"

A silent stare-off ensued when Ignis didn't answer right away. He didn't know where to put Ardyn this time. Their first meeting was unpleasant, but they never thought too much of it, meeting him in Lestallum they got to know him as a generally nice guy. And now? Ignis couldn't tell.

"And what if?" Noctis spoke up, not hiding his anger anymore. He shrugged Ignis' hand off his shoulder and walked towards Ardyn.

"I think you did something. Prompto doesn't vanish without a word, he just wouldn't!"

Ardyn didn't move but smiled innocently. "And so you are accusing me? Without any proof. Not very princely of you, your highness." He purred, leaning a bit forward, which made Noctis stop for a second. "Maybe he was just sick of you all?"

White rage flared up inside Noctis and, before he could think or be stopped by his friends, he called for his sword and jumped towards Ardyn. He never made it to him as something heavy hit his side, throwing him to the ground and successfully knocked the air out of him. He heard Ardyn laughing, Gladio's voice yelling something, fighting noises. When his sight cleared, he saw legs around him. The Magitek soldiers, silent bystanders until then, had attacked him. Feeling his side he winced slightly, as pain shot through his ribs. He wasn't bleeding and nothing seemed to be broken, but that would surely leave a bruise.

He was roughly pulled to his feet by Gladio, swaying slightly for a moment before he regained control over his body. A strong gust of wind told them that the Magitek ship was about to start.

"You should know, they don't take kindly to people attacking me." Ardyn called out, voice barely audible over the noise of the engine. "You should have behaved, your highness."

With an angry scream Noctis tossed his sword towards the still open doors, ignoring Ignis' calls to stay. He warped up and into the opening, not caring about anything. He just wanted to hurt Ardyn, make him speak, make him tell him where Prompto was.

When he grabbed his sword again, about to turn and jump towards Ardyn, he froze. Ardyn's face was right in front of him, but he was sure the man was standing on the far right side of the ship just a second ago.

He clicked his tongue in disapproval. "What did I just tell you, little prince?" He said in a dark voice, "Stay down."

Something hard hit Noctis' right temple and for a moment he could only hear a sharp ringing in his head and his world turned upside down as he fell.

It was just a small group of troopers attacking them, most of them stayed inside the ship, seemingly waiting to be used for another purpose. There were still enough for Ignis and Gladio to not be able to focus on Noctis, who went after Ardyn in his blind rage. Ignis could hear Gladio curse behind him and as he looked up, he knew why.

Noctis was falling.

The airship was already at a decent height, should he hit the ground from that high, it might kill him.

Leaving the remaining two troopers to Ignis, Gladio turned and sprinted towards Noctis, or rather the place where he possibly would hit the ground, calling out to the prince.

Noctis couldn't hear anything except the wind blowing in his ears, and still this unbearable ringing. He knew he was falling and he knew he had to do something before he would be turned into a heap of flesh and broken bones. Forcing his body to move he sloppily threw his sword towards where he guessed the ground was. The next thing he felt was him rolling over the ground, feeling nauseous and disoriented, before he came to a halt, lying face down and just breathing in the smell of earth for a moment.

Relieved about Noctis taking action in time and warping to the ground, Gladio changed his direction and slid to a halt next to his prince. His landing was rather ungraceful, but at least it didn't kill him and everything else could be easily fixed.

"Noct, you still alive?" He said, still a bit breathless and turned his friend around. Noctis groaned, but and struggled a bit until he was in a sitting position. Blood was streaming down from his left temple and his eyes were a bit unfocused.

Ignis, who had successfully ended the last MTs, ran up next to Gladio, kneeling down and cupping Noctis' face to look at his injury.

"He has him." Noctis slurred, still dizzy from the hit and the fall. "I'm sure he has him."

"Did he say something about that?" Ignis asked, wiping some of the blood away to get a better look at how big the wound was. Noctis flinched and tried to pull away, but Ignis' hand on his jaw firmly held him in place.

"No, but..." He blinked a few times to clear his vision, "I just know."

"I'd like to believe that too, but we don't have any proof for that, only that he suddenly behaved like a total dick without any reason." Gladio growled, looking at the dark spot in the sky, which was the ship.

"We can't do anything without a proper plan." Ignis tried to be the voice of reason, despite him being as worried about their youngest as the others. "And we don't even have the Regalia, so please, let us think for a moment."

Noctis hated to admit it, but he was right. The Chocobos would take them only that far, and they were still faster with the Regalia. Rubbing his chin when Ignis finally released him, he sighed in defeat. It didn't sit well with him to let Prompto wait wherever he was, possibly captured by Ardyn and some Niflheim freaks, but he had just learned the hard way what might happen when he acted too rash. "So what do you suggest?"

"Go back to Whiz's first. Clean that up before it gets worse." He nodded towards Noct's still bleeding injury. "Then we should call on some people for help, find the Regalia and more information regarding Ardyn if possible."

"Sounds boring." Gladio said while standing up. He helped Noctis up and kept a steadying hand on his shoulder when he noticed him swaying slightly. "Let's give it a shot."


	7. An innocent life

He felt dizzy. It wasn't as bad as the day before, but it was still annoying that he had to sit down every few minutes to make the world stop spinning again.

The forest seemed to go on forever, though it was now less swampy at least. Prompto had lost his sense of direction a good while ago and hoped he wasn't walking in circles, but his surroundings kept changing, so he assumed he was not.

After making sure nothing dangerous was around, he sat down on a small boulder, looking at his right wrist. It had to be two days now since he made the stupid decision to run off in the forest without thinking it through. And the even more stupid decision to nearly mutilate his wrist, trying to destroy the code, to stop his arm from acting on its own.

He prodded slightly at the stained bandages, wincing when pain shot through his arm. It was futile. It wasn't as bad as before, but his arm kept cramping up. But that didn't have to mean anything, it could get worse any moment again.

Carefully, he unwrapped the bandages to looked at the self inflicted injury, feeling sick as he did so. It looked so bad. With all the blood it looked like he was able to destroy the unwanted tattoo enough so it wouldn't be visible anymore, but after he cleaned it the first time, he even found a small bottle of antiseptic in Ardyn's bag, he realized what he had done. Several deep cuts crossed through the code and would probably leave scars without proper treatment, but the code was still visible where the skin was still intact, letting it look a bit like a puzzle.

The blond looked away for a moment, the wrist was swollen and it looked inflamed, a useless hand was the last thing he needed now, and his right was already only partially working. Feeling another tremor run through his arm, he took a few deep breaths before he searched through the bag, retrieving more bandages and the antiseptic. He poured some of the liquid over the wound, hissing in pain, then wrapped clean bandages around it. It had to suffice, there was not much more he was able to do, and no Ignis around, who could help treat this correctly.

He felt a pang in his chest when Ignis' face popped up before his eyes, accompanied with Ardyn's words. 'They didn't take that information very kindly.' Those words kept echoing inside his head since he heard them from Ardyn the first time. He buried his face in his hand and closed his eyes, listening to the noises around him. Wind rustling through the trees, birds, and a shriek of what he supposed was a cockatrice. It sounded too far away to be dangerous to him though. He decided do slightly change his route anyway. Just in case.

The dizzy feeling came back when he made a few steps and he had to lean against a tree for a moment, before he forced his body to work again. He had to keep going. He didn't know where, or if there was anything at all in the direction he was walking. Maybe he would come out at a cliff, the ocean in front of him, the only way further being the deep drop onto sharp rocks. Maybe he would even make this small last step by then? Maybe he wouldn't be afraid of dying anymore when he eventually found this place. What good was there for him to keep going anyway?

He didn't want to die.

He lost all the goals he had, felt empty and worthless, but that was nothing new. Only he believed Noctis' words back that night when they talked on the roof. They made him feel good, like he belonged. And now all of this was gone and still, he didn't want to die just yet, something inside him kept him going, even without knowing where to.

While walking, he pulled out a dried fruit, relishing it's taste when he chewed it. It brought back memories from his time in high school where he basically lived off dried fruit and jerky because you don't make a mess when eating it and, when eating it like he always did, both hands were free to hold his phone or controller. It also helped when he was trying to learn. He rubbed over his stinging eyes to clear his vision again, pushing the memories back where they belonged.

* * *

It was becoming warmer by the hour as the day went on and Prompto's body screamed for a rest. His surroundings had changed significantly now, the trees stood further apart and every now and then he found a clearing. The ground became more hilly and most of the time the grass reached up to his knees. A few times he caught himself reaching for his camera, only to be painfully reminded that he left it in the trailer back then. Trying not to think about whether the others simply had thrown it away, or maybe kept it for some strange reason, he shook his head and kept walking. He had to remember the images now.

He made a small noise of relief when he came across a narrow river flowing lazily through the countryside. Keeping his guard up at first, he looked around for a moment, listening intently before he dared to go near it when he deemed it to be safe enough. It wasn't too deep and the current didn't seem strong enough to cause any problems. One last time he looked around, then he sat down at the bank, pulling off his shoes and socks to hold his feet in the cold water. He couldn't care less about his pants getting wet, it felt too good. He leaned back until he lied flat on his back, finally giving his body the much needed rest.

For a while, he only stared up at the sky, watching some clouds float by and the occasional bird. It felt nice and peaceful and as long as he wasn't moving, the heat was actually bearable. When a thought crossed his mind, the blond sat back up and looked at the flow for a moment, eventually taking his vest off. When he guessed right – and hopefully he did – there were still a few hours until the sun would go down and it was warm enough to just dry in the sun.

Before he could think it through again and change his mind, Prompto scooted down the bank and let himself slide into the water. It went up over his waist until his feet his reached the ground and the coldness made him shudder for a moment. But, after a minute, he even dared to walk around a bit, feeling sand and pebbles under his feet and the soft current tugging on his clothes. First he was careful not to make his bandaged wrist wet but decided to risk it, as he decided to crouch down. He took a deep breath and let his whole body be swallowed by the water. The world went silent and he stayed under water for as long as his lungs let him, until his need for air made him surface again.

He rubbed over his face, washing off sweat and dirt from the last days of stumbling around the wilderness and dove down another time, before he climbed back out. He went a bit away from the stream to lie down on a patch of grass without any trees overshadowing to he could dry in the sun. Lying on his back again, smiled sadly.

"Could get used to this." He sighed, closing his eyes, "If it weren't so damn silent."

* * *

He must have dozed off because when he opened his eyes again, the sky was orange and the wind had picked up again. His hair was still damp, as was his back from lying on it, but he wasn't wet anymore, so his plan had worked out well enough. He slipped his shoes back on and grabbed the bag to go and followed the river, slightly hoping to come across a haven, though he hadn't seen one haven since he left and had turned to rather stay on the move and not depending on finding one in the near future. He had seen daemons at night, but so far he had been able to avoid them, so the blond hoped his luck would not leave him yet.

A light stinging in his wrist made him aware that he hadn't looked at his injury again after his spontaneous bath and he looked down his arm, seeing his hand twitch. "Not again." He whined and grabbed his upper arm do brace himself for what most likely would follow. The next second his arm went stiff and made him stumble as his body automatically curled up a bit, but he kept walking. The last times this had happened he found out that it helped a bit to keep moving and concentrate on his steps, not on the pain in his arm. This made him fall down more than once, but it actually helped a bit, or at least he felt like it did.

When the pain finally faded and he was able to move his arm again, he looked at the wrapped wrist, feeling the fabric. It was still clammy but it actually felt good on the wounds so he decided to leave it alone for the night.

He was debating on eating something again, his stomach already hurting a bit, when his head snapped up and he stopped dead in his tracks. He heard a shrill whining or whinnying, followed by a howl. Swallowing, Prompto realized that he was possibly hearing some predators attacking game. It sounded like a hard fight, becoming louder as he kept walking. He tried to ignore the sounds, but it felt impossible to do so. He stopped and stared at the river for a moment before turning away and walking towards the commotion, not able to ignore this.

He didn't have to go far until he came over the heartbreaking scenario, a lone Spiracorn surrounded by three Havocfangs. The fight was still going on but the Spiracorn was about to go down, already bleeding from a bad wound on her hind leg and visibly worn down from being hunted.

Prompto's hands started shaking. He waited, his body already trained to wait for one of the others to strike first, pull the attention of their enemies to them, so he could keep his distance and start shooting. 'Nobody will tell you when to start, come on, do it!' He screamed inwardly, trying to fight through his frozen state and get his body to move. Finally, he managed to lift his arm with a sudden move and conjured his gun, instantly pulling the trigger. The shot hit and threw down one of the dog-like beasts. It wasn't dead yet but he must have hit something important because it howled in pain and kept struggling to get up. The other two turned and now charged towards Prompto, who was on his knees, curled up around his throbbing arm.

Out of reflex, he had used his right hand to shoot which resulted in the worst wave of pain going through his arm. Still gasping for air, he managed to throw himself to one side to dodge the two beasts. Something hit his hip when he was lying there and he guessed it was one of the monster's claws, but except for that they missed him and gave him the chance to switch hands. Glad that he was able to shoot with both hands, he turned on his back and sat up, gun already drawn and shot one of them point-blank in the head, too much adrenaline already racing through his body to be shocked that it had been right before him.

He got back on his feet, looking for the other two, when he got jumped from behind. He curled up to a ball and heard the distinct sound of jaws snapping close, but it missed him. He blindly kicked out and connected with something. A sharp whine and for a moment, there was thick fur all around him, then it got off him. Now completely in fighting mode, Prompto got to his feet in a second and stumbled backwards. The Havocfang he hit first was up again, but it was limping badly and wouldn't be as much of a danger as the other one, so Prompto concentrated on the other monster, ducking slightly in anticipation of an attack.

His eyes were trained on the snarling beast, never blinking. A slight shift in its posture gave it away, and Prompto knew what to do. Whipping up his gun, he aimed slightly above its head and pulled the trigger just as the Havocfang jumped, moving its head right where the blond had aimed at. It gave a last strangled howl and landed limp on its side, not moving anymore. In one fluent movement, Prompto turned and aimed at the last one and another shot rang.

Breathing heavily, he just stood there for a moment, waiting for the tunnel vision to go away, before he turned and looked around. He felt proud, having successfully fought and defeated those on his own, but the feeling turned to dread as he saw the Spiracorn a few yards away, lying on its side.

"Oh, please no." He muttered and carefully walked over. When he came closer he saw some movement and breathed out. It was still breathing but that leg didn't look good.

He crouched down, still keeping some distance in case it would lash out. And looked at the animal. He had fought and killed Spiracorns before, they were on the rather aggressive side and tended to attack everything not belonging to their herd. But Prompto had always felt bad killing them. They were beautiful and nice to look at as long as you keep your distance.

"Hey." He said in a low tone, worried that loud talking would scare it. It actually lifted its head, but didn't really seem to look at him. He could see the white in its eyes and the flared nostrils. It was possibly in shock. No wonder.

There were a lot of scratches littered over its body, but the leg seemed to be the worst one, it was still bleeding and Prompto decided to risk it.

"I'm gonna try and fix ya, okay?" He said with a light smile, "So please, don't kick me."

He got no answer, obviously, but he felt better like that. His eyes still on the head, he crawled over to the Spiracorn's hind legs, taking a closer look at the injury. Three deep gashes on the lower part of the thigh. Hesitating a moment, he carefully touched the leg, testing how far he could go. He noticed a slight flinch but nothing more, which was both good and bad.

"Be right back." He said and got back up to jog back where he came from. Realizing that he had nothing on him to put water in, he took his bandanna from his arm and held it into the water until it was soaked. He brought the dripping cloth back, seeing that the mare hadn't moved an inch. Growing more worried, he cleaned the wound as good as he could, finally earning some more reaction when she weakly kicked her leg a few times. He kept talking to her, hoping it helped at least a little to keep her calm, he noticed one ear being constantly turned in his direction.

The next kick was stronger, when he poured some of the antiseptic over the wounds, which must be understandably painful, but the blond sat right behind the Spiracorn and the hoof only hit air.

Digging through the bag, he retrieved nearly all of his bandages, leaving only one for himself. There weren't much of them anymore anyway but right know he didn't worry about it. He finally had something occupying his mind enough to forget all the other thoughts that pestered him the last days. He had to focus.

When the injury was hidden beneath a thick layer of gauze, he took a step back to look satisfied at his work. "Looks nice." He said, looking over to her head. It was lying on the ground, but he could see her eyes move and heard her still a bit ragged breathing. "You will be alright."

Kneeling down near her shoulder, he put his hand on her neck to stroke her a few times. He never really touched a spiracorn but from the looks of it he always thought them to only have rough skin, considering all the spikes and patterns on the body. Now he realized that it was fur. Short, soft fur covered her whole body and nature made it stick out and look like Spiracorns were rough and spiky to the touch. He let out a small laugh.

"Would be great to tell someone about this.", he whispered, "No one would believe me."

He got up and sat down against a tree, giving her some space to rest and calm down. It was getting darker now and he could already hear daemons in the distance, hoping nothing would come near them this night.

Looking at his wrist he saw dark stains and sighed. That probably came from him shooting the gun with his right hand. He changed the dirty bandages one last time, he would think of something else to keep it covered in the morning, and drew his knees up to place his arms and head on them. The adrenaline had stopped working through his body a while ago already, but now that he felt good because he could help a hurt animal, fatigue came over him and let him fall asleep quicker than he was used to.


	8. Calming down For now

**I'm SO SORRY it took so long! Really! Everything came together, homework, writer's block and plain lazyness, yes, guilty! Anyhoo, there it is, finally, another piece and I hope you have fun reading it. Thanks to everyone who is still there.**

* * *

"Prompto."

The blond sighed sleepily and turned around, curling up under his cover. A light shove against his shoulder made his face scrunch up in disapproval. He didn't want to leave this wonderful half-asleep state just yet.

"Wake up now, Prompto, this is important." Another shove, this time by a bigger hand. Begrudgingly, he pried one eye open and looked over his shoulder, seeing his friends standing at his bed. Gladio was leaning towards him, one hand supporting him on the mattress, the other still hovering near Prompto's shoulder, ready for another shove.

Looking at them, the first thing he felt was warmth. A dream, nothing more. A weird, scary, painful nightmare. "You guys won't believe the dream I had." He said with a smile as he was sitting up and rubbed the remaining sleep from his eyes. It felt good to be back, everything was normal again.

Was it?

His eyes adjusted to the dim light of the trailer and a slight uneasiness welled up in his stomach when he looked at their faces.

"Hey, um, what's with that serious expression? Something happen?"

"You bet." Noctis said in a low tone, straightening his shoulders, "We had a long talk with Ardyn while you were still sleeping."

Ardyn. Prompto swallowed. But he promised. Right?

"Were you ever planning on telling us?"

Prompto forced himself to keep the eye contact with Noctis.

"Telling you what?" He tried to sound innocent, tried to ignore the falling sensation, bu he already knew what this was about.

Pain jolted through his arm as Gladio grabbed his right wrist, ripping off the leather band covering the barcode. "Don't play dumb, he told us about this." Gladio's loud voice made him flinch, he wanted to scoot backwards, bring distance between them, but the lager man held his hand in a vice grip, never letting go, while Noctis and Ignis leaned closer to look at the tattoo. It hurt more than it should. He knew, Gladio was strong, but it felt like his arm was about to break.

"So you are indeed one of them." Ignis sighed, "It never occurred to you that we should know about this?"

"It did! I wanted to tell you, but-" He struggled against Gladio's grip but the shield didn't budge, "I didn't know why I had if before Ardyn told me. I-I was scared, okay? Scared you'd leave me behind if you knew."

"Well, that fear isn't wrong." Noctis said, extending his arm surrounded by the light blue hue of magic, calling for his sword.

Prompto felt his blood run cold as he stared at the blade. "Noct?" He laughed nervously, "W-what's with the sword? You don't need to-"

"I don't need _what_?" Noctis interrupted him, now pointing the sword towards the blond. "It was your kind, that destroyed everything. Niflheim destroyed Insomnia, they killed our families, they killed my _father_!"

"But that wasn't me." He tried to free himself from Gladio's grip again to get some more distance between himself and the weapon that still pointed right towards his face. "I didn't do anything, Noct, I never would. Guys?"

Ignis only shook his head. "I have to side with Noct on that. You are too big of a danger to be left near the prince."

"As his shield, I can't let something like you get to him, it's not safe." Gladio said, which made Prompto's attempt to escape only more frantic. This couldn't be real, they would never...or would they?

"Noct?"

"Don't call me that." Noctis' voice was dripping with hate, the look he gave Prompto let the blond only panic more, stammering apologies while still trying to pry his wrist away from Gladio's grip.

"Noct please, d-don't do this. I'm sorry, I-"

With a swift movement he pulled his arm back, then thrust it forward again, the blade coming right towards Prompto's face.

He woke up with a scream, both arms covering his face, and it took him a moment to realize where he was. "Right. I'm here." He whispered, voice still a little shaky. His gaze wandered down to his right wrist, where he still felt Gladio's hand. He possibly had gripped it himself in his sleep, right? Rubbing over his stinging eyes he noticed how wet his face was. This dream was so vivid.

"Am I going crazy now?"

A soft snort let him look up. The spiracorn was still there. She wasn't lying on her side anymore, which was possibly a good sign, and her eyes were fixed on the blond, curious and wary.

"Sorry, did I startle you?" Prompto said with a half-smile, "Wasn't my intention. I just...had a nightmare." It felt weird talking to the animal, but not as weird as it was, when he was alone. At least now someone was listening. Or he could pretend she was.

"How are you today, huh?" He asked, realizing that the sun was already out. "None of us was eaten by daemons, sooo that's something, right?"

After getting up to his feet and stretching his stiff limbs, he walked over to the spiracorn, intending to check on the injury. The mare never left him out of her sight but stayed calm until he knelt down next to her. With an aggressive sounding noise her head shot towards him, her snapping jaw only missing him by mere inches as he let himself fall to one side to dodge the attack.

"It's okay, girl." He said, trying to stay calm, "I don't wanna hurt you. Just a quick look, okay? It's only a second." He kept talking, promising this wouldn't take long, as he carefully lifted the bandage a bit, peeking under it. After feeling the skin around it for a moment, he eventually pulled his hand away to back away from her frantically swishing tail.

"I'm not...Iggy but, as I see it, it doesn't look too bad." He explained, sitting down cross-legged against the tree where he was sitting before. "It's a bit warm, but not hot. And that's good, you see? It's healing. You will get better soon, promise."

When he gave her enough space again, she calmed down, though she still kept her eyes on the blond, ears perked up, seemingly listening. It made Prompto smile.

"Hey, how about I give you a name?"

* * *

"You're telling me to wait? How can I wait when Ardyn has obviously done something with him?"

"We don't know that, Noct."

"Yes we do. You heard him! I don't know what he did but he-he did something. We need to find him."

With an exasperated sigh, Ignis stopped trying to reach Cindy and put his phone away.

"First of all, you need to rest. Your injury might be worse than it looks." He said with a stern voice. During their walk back to the Post he had kept a close eye on Noctis and didn't like what he saw, stumbling way too much and slightly veering into another direction so they had to correct him. He grew even more concerned, when Noctis became angry at something they had discussed twenty minutes ago, when he had agreed, that waiting might be the best option.

The prince side-stepped a bit away from him and shook his head, grimacing as he instantly regretted that move.

"I can't rest now. Prompto is still gone, why are we wasting time?"

"It's enough now, Noct." Gladio growled, trying to grab Noctis' arm, but only managing to get his sleeve as he backed away from the larger man as well. With a quick move he yanked the prince closer to him, making him stumble more than he should, to grab his upper arm. "I'm not sure if you realized, but you've been hit in the head and now you sound like you're drunk."

Stepping behind Noctis, he put both hands on his shoulders to guide him towards the trailer. For a moment, the prince accepted it, walking with him, and Gladio was feeling a spark of relief, only to groan a few seconds after when Noctis made a sudden move, yanking himself out of the larger man's grip.

"Quit it already."

"You quit it! I'm alright, so leave me alone." He stumbled backwards to get away from Gladio, wincing as he bumped into Ignis. He totally forgot that the adviser was still there. Again he was pushed towards the trailer, Gladio cornering him from the other side, cutting off his only other escape route, which only made him grow more agitated.

The audible 'click' of the closing door made him whip around again, but both men behind him were ready for this to happen.

"Listen to me, Noct," Ignis said, his voice calm and collected. He tried to keep eye contact but the raven seemed to have difficulties to keep his gaze focused. "We all want to find Prompto, we truly do, but you are injured and we don't have the Regalia. So while you rest, we will try and figure out where the car is, get it back and then we are mobile enough to properly search for Prompto. Do you understand that?"

Gladio gave Ignis a confused side-glance after this last question, but stayed silent. The adviser sounded like he tried to explain something to a five year old but thinking about it, Noctis kinda acted like one.

The prince stayed silent for a moment, visibly trying to understand Ignis' words, growing only more upset when he wasn't able to. Why look for the car? Prompto needed them, who cares for the car.

"No I don't." He snapped and yanked his upper arms from his hands, "And I don't want to, I-I don't wanna wait. We need to go, Prompto needs us!"

Ignis looked over to Gladio, when Noctis tried to push past them and gave him a slight nod. The shield replied with a low hum and looked down at the prince. He didn't even manage to push one of them aside, his movements were weak and uncoordinated.

Feeling arms wrapped around him, Noctis squirmed to escape the undesired embrace, which only resulted in the throbbing pain in his head getting worse and the arms around him tightening a bit more. He was lifted from his feet for a moment, then his captor sat down with him now on his lap. Not the slightest bit happy with this situation, he twisted his body even more, kicked his legs in another desperate try to free himself again, only earning a tired sigh from Gladio behind him.

The shield leaned his head back a bit, so he wouldn't accidentally be headbutted by the squirming prince on his lap. He had wrapped both arms around Noctis' arms and chest, so the younger man was only able to kick, which barely phased the brute.

"C'mon, keep trying." He encouraged Noctis with a wry smile, "Tire yourself out, that's right."

"You think you can hold his head still for a moment, Gladio?" Ignis was now next to them with a wet cloth in one hand, "I want to look at that wound again." Gladio looked at him as if he had just told a very bad joke, then looked back at the still squirming prince in his arms.

"I'm sure he will tire soon, anyway."

"You wanna hold him, then?"

"Gladio."

With a sigh, he shifted Noctis' position a bit to be able to hold his body with one arm and grabbed his jaw with the other hand, pushing slightly upward to press his head against his shoulder to hold it in place. All this earned him an almost feral growl from the prince.

"Leave me!" He hissed out between his teeth, his whole body now rearing up, fighting against the restraint.

"No can do, sorry." Gladio said, waiting patiently for this tantrum to end, which wouldn't be long, regarding the labored huffs of breath coming from the raven since he picked him up.

After another try to wind himself out of Gladio's unwavering hug, his body sagged against the larger man's and he had to close his eyes to fight the growing dizziness. When he felt something cool against his temple, he winced as it touched the laceration and sent a sharp sting through his skull. He started moving again, but gave it up when he felt Gladio's arms tighten again.

"But...Prompto. He's-"

"We will find him." Gladio's gruff voice near his ear interrupted him, "But we can't do that with you fainting on us."

He tried to pull his head out of the other's grip a few times, every time the hand tightened for a moment, kept him firmly in place while Ignis' fingers felt around the wound, sending painful stings through his head. Why was this so important for them, he just hit his head. Though he wasn't sure when this happened anymore. He only knew that Prompto was gone, possibly captured by the Niffs, that Ardyn had done something, that he wasn't a friend. Why was he so terribly exhausted all of a sudden?

Gladio relaxed his grip around the prince's chest a bit more, when he felt his feeble attempts to move reduced to mere shivers.

"Guess he's finally getting tired." He mumbled, looking at his face. His eyes were half closed and every time Ignis touched the injury he grimaced in pain. "Nice concussion you got yourself there, buddy."

"A concussion indeed." Ignis sighed, getting up when he was done cleaning off the blood and examining the laceration. "This surely will bruise and we need to keep an eye on him at least over the night. If he still is disoriented and talks like this, we have to take him to a doctor somehow, but I hope that won't be the case." While talking, he had thrown the bloody cloth in the sink and grabbed a small towel, which he held under the water for a moment, before he walked back over to the odd pair and put it over Noctis' eyes and forehead.

Both smiled when this resulted in a deep sigh from the prince, who leaned slightly against the nice coolness. Gladio fully let go of his jaw and replaced Ignis' hand, so he was free again.

"So, no sleep for us tonight, huh?" He asked while scooting back to sit more comfortably on the bed and could lean his back against the wall. Noctis wasn't fully relaxed yet, but he was getting there and the shield deemed it not necessary anymore to hold him. Instead he let him just lean against his chest, only holding the towel in place with one hand.

Meanwhile, Ignis gave in to the urge rid the prince of his shoes to make him a bit more comfortable, amusement glinting in his eyes as he watched Gladio getting comfortable with Noctis still in his lap. One could forget that his Highness was twenty years old when looking at him now.

"We can change shifts." He offered. Gladio looked Noctis over again, then shrugged with his free shoulder.

"Let's see how long he wants to stay where he is now. You try and get a hold of Cindy, the day is still young. If he wants to stay like this this night there is no need for you to wake up, I can't move anyway."

Ignis nodded in agreement and took out his phone. Under other circumstances he would have protested against Gladio's indifference of possibly not getting any sleep for a whole night, but he wanted to give Noctis more than just one night to fully heal. There would be plenty of time to catch up on sleep if necessary. Pulling out his phone, he was about to leave the trailer to make some more calls – outside so to not disturb the finally calm Noctis – when he heard Gladio clear his throat.

Looking back, he saw Gladio's extended hand.

"One thing, Iggy." The brute said and an amused smile already appeared on Ignis' face.

"Your book?"

"My book, please."


	9. A name

"Lady? Nah." He hummed thoughtfully and crossed his arms over his chest. "Princess, maybe. You wanna be a princess?"

The Spiracorn looked at him with curious eyes. She was still lying, but became more active by the minute and Prompto hoped, she would stand up soon. Right now she was eyeing the blond, who was lying on his back, legs propped up against the trunk of a tree. He looked at her upside-down image, trying to come up with a fitting name for quite a while now. It took his thoughts off of the dark corners in his brain, the memory of the dream.

The mare snorted and started nibbling at some grass, seemingly not interested in Prompto anymore.

"No Princess, I guess." The blond sighed, rolling on his side to sit up and lean against the tree. "How about Cindy, then?"

No reaction from the Spiracorn, but a painful sting in Prompto's chest when the face of Hammerhead's pretty mechanic popped up in his mind.

"Give it up, Argentum." He mumbled, his mood soured again, "She'd probably, hate you too, when she finds out what you are." Unconsciously, his hand wandered to his right wrist. The pain had mostly subsided, but he was already waiting for it to start again, for the next wave of spasms and for his weapon to appear without him calling it. "Cid would possibly try to kill me."

He lifted the bandage up a bit to peek under it. From what he could make out it looked okay enough not to be concerned just yet. He carefully flexed his wrist experimentally, wincing when sharp pain started shooting up his arm. He shouldn't do that just yet, maybe.

A strange noise made him look up and a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. The Spiracorn was trying to get up. "Careful there, girl." Prompto said in a low tone so he wouldn't scare her. It was difficult with only three legs to put weight on and he considered stepping over to help her keep the balance to she wouldn't fall to her side, but then again, touching would possibly scare her more than help in that matter. So he waited.

After a few failed tries she seemed to find out a way to do it just right and in a matter of seconds, the mare was up on all four. Well, three. She didn't let her right hind leg touch the ground at all, only stood there, looking around and enjoying her newly acquired view. Turning her head, she sniffed curiously at the thick wrapping.

"Leave the bandages on, girl, those were m last, alright?" Prompto muttered when she pushed her nose against them, "It'll be okay, you'll see. You will heal just fine."

The Spiracorn's head shot up when the blond shifted his weight a little. Looking right at him, she let out a warning snort and lowered her head until the horns pointed directly towards him. Prompto froze, only slowly turned his head away, looking at some lose stones lying near him.

For a moment, neither of them moved, then he heard her, carefully making her way over to him until he felt her presence right in front of him. He could hear her breathing, which was nothing like the frantic huffs she had made the day before. No, this time her breath was deep and even, like it should be. Prompto tried to match her breathing in order to help him stay calm. When he wouldn't panic, she wouldn't attack, right? Spiracorns tend to attack even without provocation but maybe she wouldn't see him as a threat if he didn't act like one.

After endless seconds of not-moving, he dared to turn his head a bit, just so he could look at her, and was surprised how near she actually was. Her spiraled horns were only inches away from his chest, one quick thrust and he would be impaled. His eyes following the characteristic twisted helix form, he found her eyes staring at him through the thick tuft of fur on her forehead. He never realized while the mare was lying down but having her now standing and this near – damn she was huge!

Judging by the little knowledge of animal's body language he had, she was alarmed, but not aggressive. Was she testing him?

He relaxed a bit more against the tree, averting his eyes again. "I won't hurt you." A small movement in the corner of his eye. Her ears had perked up, reacting to his voice.

"Promise." He said, surprising himself with how calm he sounded. "I helped ya, remember? Maybe we could be...friends?" Talking seemed to help loosen the tension. "Only until you're alright again, of course. So you can go back to your family."

Another movement, her whole head this time. Lifting it until her nose leveled with his head. He heard her breathe in deeply, taking in his scent, considering what to do. He started chewing the inside of his cheek and tried to concentrate on keeping his breath even. No need to panic just yet.

"I'm no enemy." He whispered, voice slightly breaking when he realized what he just said. Was he really? Swallowing the dark thought he tried to concentrate on the task at hand again. The Spiracorn still scanned him over, not sure where to put him.

Minutes passed by with neither her nor Prompto moving at all. Then it just passed. The mare turned her head away, looking into another direction as if she had found something more interesting than Prompto, and eventually hobbled away; still on three legs only.

Breathing in and out deeply a few times, Prompto allowed himself to completely relax and stretch out his legs, after sitting cross-legged and barely moving seemingly for way too long. He threw a wary look over to the Spiracorn but she didn't care at all about him moving now. She had lowered her head, grazing peacefully now only a few yards away from him.

Her leg was still hovering above the ground, but every now and then she used the tip of her hoof to balance herself. A smile formed on his face. It would carry her again, soon, he was sure of it. At least one thing he could do right.

Watching the beautiful creature grazing, looking around and testing her leg from time to time turned out to be therapeutic for the blond. He felt like he could watch her the whole day, and apparently he did. When he looked up, the few patches of sky he could see through the trees were already turning orange. How long has he been sitting like this? Moving a bit, he heard his joints crack and gasped slightly at the relieving sensation.

Carefully he stood up, trying not to fall over in the process, his stiff legs not yet fully cooperative. Back on his feet, he stretched every limb until he felt like his muscles were finally getting warm again. Looking to his left, he stopped mid-stretch, when he saw the Spiracorn looking at him again. He flashed a smile at her and continued his workout, slightly more wary.

"I must look weird to you." He said with a light laugh, not able to deal with the silence anymore. "A strange animal walking on two legs and making funny noises, right?"

He turned towards her and stood still, letting her look at him and get used to his figure. After a few minutes of the mare actually looking him up and down in a skeptical but also curious manner, she eventually decided that he was harmless and went back to grazing.

"Guess I'm accepted now?" Slowly he made a few steps toward her, watching every movement of her, and held out a hand. The mare stopped ripping out blades of grass and slightly raised her head to look at Prompto.

"So...does that make us friends?" His voice was slightly shaking in anticipation of what he wanted to do. "We're good now, right? You won't try to kill me. I-I hope."

His hand was only inches away from her neck, still not moving away from him or any other behaviour. She really allowed him to pet her. Swallowing his last insecurities he reached forward, touching the soft fur. Then he felt her muscles twitch.

Her reaction was so fast, he barely realized what was happening before the air was knocked out of him. He was lying on his back, the Spiracorn over him huge and dangerous. With a loud snort she lifted one of her front legs and forcefully brought it down again. Prompto was frozen in place, too shocked to react in time. He turned his head and looked at the hoof right next to his head, swallowing hard when he saw how deep it was burrowed in the ground. If this would have actually hit his head – no, rather not think about it.

Another loud snort, she was still staring at him, nostrils flared.

"Alright. No touchie. I get it." He croaked and carefully scooted away from her. Looking quite satisfied to have made her rules clear to him, the mare turned away from him and hobbled over to some bushes where she began chewing on the twigs like nothing ever happened.

When Prompto felt like his lungs would work on their own again, he got up and walked back over to 'his' spot near the tree. The Spiracorn's ears turned back, making out where he was, before going back to their relaxed position again. Prompto felt like he had lost a fight. Why would he even think she would let him touch her, she was a wild animal and no pet. She was only still there because she couldn't use her hurt leg yet.

Deciding to eat something himself, he dug around in the bag he decided on only a few slices of dried fruit, he had to ration what he had left until he was back to civilization or found something more to eat. "Man I wish I could live off grass and stuff. Would be so much easier to find something to eat." He said, more to himself than anyone else, but saw the Spiracorn's head turn. Looking up, he met eyes with the creature and slightly cocked his head.

"You still mad at me for trying to pet ya?"

The mare turned around, focusing on her previous task again, leaving him with a view of her butt and slowly swinging tail.

"Yup. Still mad."

Prompto wasn't sure when he'd fallen asleep, but when he was jerked awake by commotion nearby, it was pitch black around him. Shrill whinnying and the sound of something slamming into a tree made the hair on his neck stand on edge and he jumped to his feet. He couldn't make out the Spiracorn anywhere near him, but the sound didn't come from too far away. Without thinking further, he grabbed his bag and walked in the direction he heard the noises from, steps becoming faster when the commotion got louder.

"Where are you, girl, what is happening?" He called out, not caring how a Spiracorn could possibly answer this question, it was the adrenaline speaking. Breaking into a run, he stumbled through some shrubs and nearly fell into the water appearing right in front of him. He remembered this place, this was where he had followed the flow and heard the fight.

An aggressive snort made his head whip to his right and he gasped. His eyes had become accustomed to the dark good enough by now to make out the Spiracorn, the bandage on her leg clearly visible. And in front of her something that made his blood run cold.

A Ronin was standing before her, sword drawn and ready to attack. He must have caught them both off guard, because the daemon was looking at him now. The blond swallowed. Even Noctis avoided those foes if possible, their attacks were fast and hard and he often ended with trembling hands from all the blocking. They were hard to fight when the four of them were together, how was he alone supposed to do this?

His eyes wandered over to the Spiracorn. She was slowly walking sideways, stepping away from the enemy, even using her hurt leg.

Ah, fuck it.

Prompto made a few forceful steps toward the daemon, until he was standing next to the Spiracorn. He waved his arm in her direction, successfully scaring her off as she snorted and turned to trot away from them and vanish between the trees.

He summoned his gun, his arm already outstretched, and instantly released three quick shots. Then everything became red, searing pain crawled up his arm and obscured his senses. Through his own agonized scream, he could barely hear the Ronin's growl. Did he hit it? He stumble backwards, forcing himself to extend his throbbing arm again and shook his head to clear his vision. This was only helping to a degree, but he could make out the shape of the daemon again, doubled over as well; it seemed his bullets had all hit their mark.

His hand was shaking violently which made aiming near impossible until he switched hands. Thanking the gods that he was able to shoot with both hands, he released two more bullets towards the Ronin. This time, his enemy was prepared though, dodging the bullets it now sped towards the blond. He only managed to evade the sword strike by throwing himself ungracefully to one side, hurrying to get back on his feet, ready for the next attack. The Ronin's next swing only missed him by a hair and he made a few more steps back to get some distance between them.

This was so much harder without other people distracting the monster so he could attack from afar.

His next few shots his their mark again, he kept shooting while dancing around the daemon, always moving so it wouldn't be able to hit him that easily.

The fight went on with Prompto thinking, he could actually do this, a triumphant smile forming on his lips, until he slammed with his back against a tree. Adrenaline induced euphoria became fear in a matter of seconds when he turned his head, seeing nothing except a thick wall of trees and bushes behind him. If he'd try to flee through there, he would possibly get stuck, there was nowhere to go. While playing his game with the Ronin, the daemon hat played its own game in herding him into a dead end without him knowing. The beast had even taken the hits to let him think his plan was working. Intelligent bastard.

The whizzing of the Ronin's blade turned his attention back on his attacker but it was too late to fully dodge this time. He gasped as the sword's blade grazed his left shoulder, instantly drawing blood. The next swing he evaded by letting himself slip down the trunk, now sitting between big tree roots, not able to go left or right without stumbling or getting caught in a thick net of twigs and branches.

The Ronin pulled his arm back and Prompto's breath hitched as he found himself back in his last nightmare. Was this how it would end?

"Dammit, NO!" He yelled out, dismissing his gun and replacing it with something bigger. He wedged the machinery between some roots and pulled the lever to heat the weapon up, making it emit a red glow from within. He seemed to surprise the daemon with this long enough to make it hesitate, eyes wandering over to the whirring weapon.

"Not today, you hear me?" Prompto growled and braced himself. The next second, he heard a thump, then a loud bursting noise as the overloaded weapon released everything it had on the enemy. Thanks to the roots, the recoil was extremely manageable for the blond and he only had to hold it down, so the barrel would stay fixed on the target.

Said target was sent flying with the explosive attack, nearly landing in the river when it finally hit the ground. Prompto was panting, but kept his position, eyes on the daemon until thin currents of smoke indicated its death as it slowly dissipated. Taking a few deep breaths, he allowed himself to relax and dismiss his weapon, when nothing was left from the daemon and he felt safe to assume that it wouldn't stand up, ready for another round.

He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the tree. He felt filthy, blood was running down his arm and his right hand was still trembling. And for what?

He heard a soft snort right next to him and jumped a bit. There she was, looking at him like she was wondering why he was sitting on the ground like this. For a moment, they only looked at each other, the blond still breathing heavily. Finally he lifted his hand to touch the cut on his shoulder, carefully feeling it. It wasn't too deep, so the bleeding should stop on its own after a while.

Pointing a finger at the injury, he looked at the Spiracorn with raised eyebrows. "I took one for you. We good now?"

The mare followed his pointing finger, moving her head a bit closer to sniff at his bloody shoulder and his hand. Prompto didn't dare to move. When she raised her head a bit more, her nose now in front of his face he swallowed, considering backing up for a moment, but didn't.

Warm air was blown against his face and ruffled his hair, when she released another long snort. Right after, she turned and walked a bit away, getting back to grazing and sniffing at some leaves. What in Eos was that about?

Dumbfounded, Prompto stayed where he was, staring at the Spiracorn, peacefully grazing as if nothing ever happened. Suddenly, something came to his mind and he clicked his tongue.

"Hey, Cass."

The Spiracorn lifted her head and looked in his direction, a few long blades of grass hanging out of her mouth. The blond smiled and relaxed fully against the tree with a small laugh.

"Cass it is, then."


	10. Companions

Prompto's knees hurt. This crouching position was getting increasingly uncomfortable, but he didn't want to change it just yet. She was so close to him.

He only slightly adjusted his outstretched arm so he wouldn't lose feeling in it, the branch he held still steady in his hand. Cass was in front of him, shyly nibbling at the leaves, but stopping every time Prompto moved too much.

They were playing this game for a solid two days now. After the daemon attack, Prompto decided that it might be healthier to move again. And Cass...she followed. He couldn't be more overjoyed when he heard the soft thudding of hooves behind him, when he was just about to mentally prepare himself for a short goodbye and more loneliness.

She always kept her distance, sidestepped away from the blond when he came too close, but never left. The limp was still there but she tried using the leg already when walking. Memories of his old life came up, when he found the tiny white puppy in the streets, hurt and hungry. Though Pryna was a lot more easy to handle than a giant horned horse. But he was still happy Cass was somewhat interested in his company.

When the branch was suddenly snapped from his hand, he woke up from his wandering thoughts, looking at his now empty hand, then at Cass, who was happily munching on her treat.

"That's not fair." He whined, letting himself fall back to finally stretch his legs again. Cass shook her head with a neigh and turned away from him, walking over to something more interesting than the blond.

"Oh c'mon, don't be so rude."

He chuckled lightly while Cass kept ignoring him and got to his feet.

"You know...I don't really care, sulk all you want." Walking past her and in the direction they were walking the last days, he observed her reaction. "Wanna know why? It's your ears." Right on cue, Cass' ears turned, following his voice.

"See, that's what I meant. They reveal everything. You like my voice, admit it."

Of course she didn't, but the flicking ears were answer enough for Prompto to ramble on while he was walking. A soft smile appeared when he heard her start walking behind him.

He shoved his hands in his pockets, only to wince and pull the right one out again, the movement setting free a sharp sting. For a moment he looked at his bandaged wrist, pondering, then he pulled the dirty cloth off. It looked ugly, still not fully healed and the patches of code made him cringe. But it looked clean enough, so he did an okay job with keeping dirt away from the wound at least. Not wanting to look at it, he pulled the bandanna off his arm and wrapped it around his wrist.

Holding it up he turned to Cass to show it to her. "Does it look pretty?" Cass had stopped when he did, watching what he was doing and sniffing the air. "Well, I think it makes me look mysterious. 'Ouh, what's he hiding under there? There has to be something.' Guess what, you'll never know."

He laughed and turned to continue on his way. The scenery had started to change, less trees and more rocks, but still green. Small white and purple flowers were growing from crevices in the rocks, it was actually quite beautiful.

"Man I sure miss my camera." He looked over his shoulder to see what Cass was doing. Her head was hanging low but one ear was pointing in his direction. "Ya know, I had a camera," he went on, "Pretty neat thing. But I left it at the...left it somewhere. And I can't go back there. Sad though, I'm missing so many nice opportunities to take some pics. Could have taken some really nice pictures of you as well."

He kicked a stone in front of him and looked as it vanished in the higher grass. "I miss my friends."

Behind him, he heard Cass rip out some grass. He couldn't help but envy her a little. Her biggest sorrow was to get healthy and find her herd again, while the blond didn't even know what to do at all. He wasn't even sure where he as walking to, just trying to follow one direction.

"Pathetic, isn't it?" He scoffed, kicking another stone, "I'm acting like the biggest crybaby about it, but I should have seen it coming. I'm possibly closer to a daemon than a human, something in-between." He waved his right arm to show the wrapped wrist. "That's why I have this thing here. A code identifying me as the freak of nature I am."

Realizing how aggressive his voice became, he took a few deep breaths before going on. "I...had the greatest friends, you know. Up until they kinda...found out. And now they hate me because I am what killed their families and my arm does strange things and...now I'm alone." He stopped when he heard his voice crack and looked down.

"But you couldn't care less, right? To you I'm just a weird animal making way too much noise."

With a long drawn snort, Cass threw her head up a few times. It looked so much like she was nodding, Prompto couldn't help but burst out laughing, startling the animal as he doubled over. The mare made a few steps away from him, observant eyes still on the giggling blond, but she seemed curious enough as to not back away too far.

He rubbed the back of his hand over his eyes to wipe away gathering tears and straightened his back again. "Alright, I'm better now. Let's keep going, alright? Cass?"

Cass had stopped moving and was intently staring at something behind Prompto. Soft nickering made him slowly turn around and he gasped upon seeing what was there. Up the steep hill they were walking alongside were Spiracorns. A whole herd was standing there, looking down at them. Prompto guessed there were about fifteen or twenty of them as far as he could see. Cass started moving, walking past him and tried to climb the hill, which only resulted in her still not fully healed leg not accepting the strain and giving in. She made a pain filled noise when she stumbled and fought to keep standing on her healthy legs.

Startled by the sudden and unusual moves and the noise, the herd turned and took off, leaving back the limping Cass. Whinnying, she was about to give the climb another try, but Prompto pulled himself out of his stupor and swiftly walked over, standing in front of her to stop her from hurting herself even more.

"Calm down, girl, you'll hurt yourself," he said, his arms outstretched to shoo her away from the hill while still keeping enough distance. Which was apparently a good idea because suddenly Cass lowered her head and charged forward, the blond only narrowly dodged her horns and counted himself lucky that she wasn't using her injured leg.

"I'm sorry, but that won't help," he said, walking sideways with his eyes still on her, "Let's try to find another way, huh? What do you say?" It broke his heart when the Spiracorn turned again towards the hill, neighing loudly to call out to the herd.

"Cass." Prompto tried to get her attention, clicked his tongue and called out to her to lure her along. "C'mon girl, we'll just go around here, okay? We will find them, I'll take you to them."

It took a lot of coaxing, but somehow he managed to motivate Cass to follow him again. Following the hill, they kept catching glimpses of the other Spiracorns that seemed to follow the duo as well, curious but wary.

The hill became steeper the longer they walked and the blond began to worry the herd would turn around but for some reason they kept following. The day turned into night, as did the next and the one after. He fell asleep with Cass calling out for the herd and upon waking up, both of them listened intently for a few minutes for the obvious noises that indicated the herd still being there. Every now and then Cass tried to climb the hill again, and every time she god further. With the passing time her steps grew more confident, her leg became better and carried her safer every day. She became noticeable more agile, walking around swaying head and tail while she looked for a nice place to graze only to suddenly squeal and make some coltish leaps to release some overflowing energy. She limped again the first few times she did that.

Prompto couldn't remember when was the last time he laughed that much. Cass was excited every time they saw members of the herd looking down the hill and with her growing spirits, his mood lightened up as well. She accepted him walking close to her, as long as he kept his arms by himself and wouldn't make any too spacious moves, and took offered leafy branches or bunches of grass without hesitating any more, the better she got.

The day came when she was trotting around him in wide circles, playfully nickering towards the blond before turning and speeding away to call out towards the hill. By now she always received an answer and every now and then some heads popped up to see if she was still there. When the hill became an almost vertical wall, Prompto grew worried again. Were they going the right way or was this the biggest mistake they could have made and they would be separated soon?

His worries ceased when he was woken up by an earthquake one morning. He was on his feet before his brain could process what was happening and he had to blink a few times before the dark shapes coming towards him made sense. Cass was walking towards the herd, neighing excitedly while the whole herd was coming down the hill now. Without any issues they slid down the steep hill, falling into a gallop as soon as they hit even ground again.

Cass joined and Prompto could only stare in awe. She still wasn't as fast as the others, still favoring her leg a little after learning that this actually helped it to get better. The herd galloped around Prompto in a wide berth, not trusting the blond enough to get as close to him as Cass did. But Prompto laughed joyously anyway. They came down. After all these days of walking alongside each other with a border between them they wouldn't come down and Cass couldn't get up, they finally decided to come and visit their missing member.

After a while they distanced themselves a bit more again, everyone calming down until they finally scattered over the soft hills to graze. Cass stood there for a moment, still a bit away from the herd, observing everything, before she lowered her head as well.

She would get there. Prompto was sure of it.

He sat down in the shadow of some trees and enjoyed the view. It was then that the thought set in. They were here now. They came to pick her up and take her with them so she wasn't alone anymore. Unconsciously he started chewing on his lower lip. Right. That's what would happen if you take an animal to their own kind. They'd stick together, understand each other. They'd be where they belong.

Their pace had slowed considerably now that they all were on the same side of the hills and Cass and Prompto now followed the herd wherever they planned to go. That night the blond couldn't sleep. He heard the noises of the animals, heard Cass near him walking around, the sound of her hooves fading away before becoming louder again when she came back to him. He curled up a bit more and drew in a shaky breath as he made a mental decision.

Tomorrow.

He wasn't sure when he managed to find sleep but at some point during the night he must have. When he sat up and looked around he found the herd quite a bit away from them. They must have moved during the night. Cass was still near him, but looking towards the herd, ears perked up and nostrils flared.

Prompto got up, taking his time patting dirt from his pants, though it didn't make any difference by now, after walking around and sleeping in the same clothes for days after days. But it helped to buy him some time before the inevitable.

"So...it's time," he said with a sigh after he walked up next to Cass. He looked at her and couldn't hide a smile. She looked beautiful and healthy again. The leg had healed, she used it without the slightest trace of a limp now and at some point she had managed to rip the bandages off. There were scars clearly visible but it it didn't even look slightly as bad as what he did to his wrist. Speaking of which, he hadn't looked at it for a good while now. He possibly would when there was nothing else to observe anymore.

His gaze wandered over to the herd, some of the Spiracorns were already looking in their direction. It looked so peaceful. The thought that he used to fight these beautiful animals made him swallow hard.

"Look, they're waiting for you," he said and looked over to Cass, who was still watching the herd, but not moving. "C'mon now, go," he said, his voice starting to crack, "Back to your family. Move"

He threw his arms in the air for the Spiracorn to finally move. After all this time with her following him around it hurt so much to let her go, even when she never had trusted him completely, but still. He had someone to talk to, wasn't alone anymore. For a while.

Cass made a startled jump forward and fell into a trot towards the herd where she was greeted with soft neighs and some of the animals gathering around her.

"See, they want you to be with them." Prompto whispered. He watched her a few more minutes, being welcomed in the herd as if she'd always been there. They had waited for her the whole time.

Would he be greeted like this too? His gaze wandered down to his shoes. Dirty. As was the rest of him after living in the wilderness for quite the while now.

"Don't be silly, they wouldn't." he told himself and took a deep shaky breath, remembering Ardyn's words. "They'd probably already forgotten me."

He threw a last glance at the herd before he turned around, picking a random direction he would go from now on. He would see if that was the right decision when he reached something, anything really. As long as he kept walking. As the world in front of him became blurry, he frantically rubbed his eyes. "Stop it, Prompto, what's the deal?" he scolded himself, "You're used to being alone, so come on, stop being so pathetic."

He didn't believe his own words. He wanted to go back so badly, wanted to see his friends again. But then again, what for? They knew who he was, Ardyn told them everything. And he told him everything. They hated him. Now that they knew it, he saw them pulling out their weapons as soon as he was in their sight. And he couldn't even be mad at them, he had lied, he hid what he was and when his arm started acting up he knew it would have been only a matter of time for them to find out. He didn't belong to that group anymore as much as he still wished to be.

Forcing himself to look forward again, Prompto tried to walk faster, tire himself out. Maybe he should run? Run until he would collapse, didn't sound too nice but it would distract him from his dark thoughts.

Something warm and soft touching the back of his neck caused him to freeze. Cold fear gripped his heart as he waited for something to happen. He winced when he heard a loud snort and felt warm air being blown against his neck, but then he realized. Turning around he was greeted by the push of a soft nose against his face before the Spiracorn took a few steps backwards.

It was just her. He could see the herd in the distance moving slowly mowing away from them.

"Wh-what are you doing?" Prompto stammered, rubbing his tingling neck. "Go back, before you lose them. You belong to your herd." He tried to shoo her away again but Cass just threw her head up and started dancing around him, nickering softly.

"What's wrong with you? Stop it and get lost." He wiped his wet face. "This isn't fair, you know?"

Suddenly Cass jumped forward and Prompto, already seeing himself being impaled by the helixhorns, closed his eyes and awaited the pain.

Noting happened.

Just a warm waft of air on his face. Carefully, he opened one eye but saw only something dark right in frond of his face. He recognized the Spiracorn's nostrils when he opened both eyes and didn't dare to move with her that close to him. The soft muzzle eventually pressed against his forehead, a soft snort ruffling his hair. Then it started wandering over his head, sniffing his hair, even nibbling on a longer strand for a moment before wandering down again, rubbing on his cheek for a moment and ultimately resting on his right.

Goosebumps were running up and down Prompto's arms and back. This never happened, not even once! The closest he got to her was when he cared for her wound but even then she had tried to attack him, never allowed him to touch her until this day.

"Why?" he croaked. Slowly he lifted his hand until it was just inches away from her head. No reaction, no flinching or any other warning sign. Giving himself one last push he put his hand against her head. Still nothing.

"Do you mean it?" Carefully, only waiting for her to pull away, he started to stroke her head and after a moment of hesitation he lifted his other hand as well to let it glide down her neck. Cass just stood there, eyes half closed and her head still resting heavily on his trembling shoulder.

Leaning his head against hers, Prompto closed his eyes. "You sure you wanna do this? Make time for a loser like me?" Another soft snort. Prompto chuckled lightly and put his arms around her neck.

"Take this as a 'Yes', okay?" he mumbled against her head.

A few seconds Cass accepted the hug before she pulled away and shook her head. "Too much?" Prompto laughed. Some remaining tears were still making trails in the dirt on his face, but he didn't care. "Alright. But be warned, I don't really know where to. Just walking...somewhere. You coming?"

Fear showed its ugly face again when he turned around and started walking. Would she follow? Or was this just her way of saying farewell? The relief came fast as he heard her starting to walk, catching up to the blond until her head was next to his shoulder again. She was still so close. His steps became lighter, suddenly everything seemed so much nicer and brighter. At this very moment he couldn't be happier.


	11. A fight in the desert

With somewhat of a proud feeling, Prompto watched Cass coming towards him. It only needed a short call or whistle by now for her to turn and trot over to him.

He turned around with a grin but there was no one else.

"Why am I still doing this?" He asked, turning to Cass, trying not to let the sadness get to him again. The Spiracorn didn't answer but looked at him in that calm way she always did.

"I'll stop moping, I'm sorry." He said with a slight laugh and placed a hand on her nose.

It was four days ago, that Cass had decided to stay with him, and since then they had kept moving. Prompto still wasn't sure where to; he didn't even know where exactly they were. He tried to keep moving north, following a feeling he had, but nothing more. But he tried to convince himself that he didn't need more. He had Cass so he wasn't alone anymore, right? Everything else might just turn out fine.

"You know, it would make things easier if you'd let me ride ya." He said as he started walking again. Cass snorted and threw her head up a few times.

Prompto sighed, "Not helpful." He laid a hand on her neck, tangling his fingers in her shaggy mane. Over the days he constantly did this, gradually trying to let her get used to the constant touch and it seemed to work. Sometimes she even loved it enough to hold still and doze off after a while. She even tried to return the favor, nibbling on his clothes or hair until Prompto had to pull away because she started to use her teeth too much. He already got quite a few bruises from that.

The only thing Prompto still wasn't allowed to do was the riding. He once tried it without thinking. Just hop up and she will get used to it, he thought and did so. The second Cass felt the weight on her back she made a jump forward and started bucking until it was gone again. After that she turned and looked at Prompto who was sitting on the ground trying to make out if he had broken anything.

Luckily he wasn't hurt, but always kept thinking how he could teach her to carry him. They would be so much faster; also it would look pretty awesome. He had started to take his vest off and lay it over her back from time to time. At first she was a bit confused, had pulled it off or shook her whole body until it slid down but after a while she had gotten used to it enough to stop caring about it. Only Prompto still wasn't allowed.

They passed a herd of Anaks going in the opposite direction, two of the calves came over to look at the unusual duo. Cass snorted and started playfully running around the two long legged creatures. Prompto stopped and his hand wandered to the pocket where he kept his camera. Only to be greeted by emptiness.

With a sigh he let his hand fall to his side again and simply kept watching the little play. By then the herd had stopped too, watching what sidetracked their young ones, but not even the huge stag seemed to worry. They let them play around with Cass for a few more minutes before one of the mothers called the calves back into the safety of the herd.

"Shall we move on too now?" Prompto asked Cass as she eventually decided to come back to him as well.

The sun was beginning to set when Prompto noticed a change in the environment. The grass became longer and dryer and there were less trees and more rocks. In the distance he could see skeletons of what might have been Niflheim airships from the looks of it. More metal scraps were littered everywhere the further they walked and Prompto guessed that there had been a big battle in these parts. The air was hot and dry but dark clouds on the horizon let it look like there could be rain soon.

"We might need a place to stay dry soon, when those reach us." He said, tilting his head a bit. The heat made him drowsy but his legs kept walking and he just let himself drift.

All of a sudden Cass stopped dead in her tracks, forcing Prompto to stop as well. Her ears perked up and she looked attentively to their right. Bewildered, Prompto took a look as well and squinted. There was a trail of dust. It was too far away to make out what made this, but it made them both curious.

"Should we go see?" He asked looking at Cass who didn't turn her head away. They probably wouldn't catch up to whatever made that cloud but it could be something interesting lying in that direction. Something new.

"C'mon," he said, excitement in his voice, deciding that it would be worth looking, "I smell an adventure."

* * *

It was getting darker by the minute, and Prompto heard some far away thunder. Of course they hadn't caught up to the dust trail and now, with the increasing darkness, they couldn't even see it anymore. When he was forced to turn on his flashlight, he shone around them looking for anything like a shelter.

The air already smelled like rain and it was cooling down rapidly, so he'd rather find something to hide from it and be safe through the night. Cass stayed right next to him as soon as it became dark, shoulders almost touching each other. She never went far from him in the dark, which was kind of a nice feeling.

After a short while, Prompto found a rock formation which provided enough shelter for both of them. Cass waited patiently while he checked if there were any Saphyrtails or other vermin already occupying the place but it was free and so he called her to him.

It didn't take long for the rain to start and soon they were in the middle of a thunderstorm. Cass stood completely relaxed, not the slightest bothered by the raging weather. Prompto wasn't really scared of thunderstorms but he didn't like them either and even though their hiding place shielded them mostly from the rain, the wind blew through unhindered, making the blond shiver.

He had already crawled as far in as possible cowering against the back wall but it didn't help. Trying to accept that he possibly wouldn't sleep at all that night, he was a bit startled as the wind subsided. Turning his head, he saw a dark mass near him and smiled as he heard the familiar snort.

"You serious?" He asked as he scooted over to Cass. Even with this cold weather, her body radiated heat and soon he was pressing himself thankfully against her. Lying down, he was completely protected from the biting wind. Cass had turned her head around and he could hear her breathing somewhere near his head. Soon the steady breathing and her warmth soothed him to sleep.

If it were up to him, he could've easily slept through the next day as well, but Cass' plans were different. Sometime while sleeping he must have snuggled up against her even more so, as when the Spiracorn stood up, Prompto rolled over on his back. Still half asleep, he blinked a few times but saw just two huge nostrils right in front of his face. Before he could realize and dodge the coming, Cass snorted loudly.

"Ugh, Cass!" Prompto covered his face and rolled back on his side. "Could you not? Gross."

Rubbing his face he eventually sat up and looked around while Cass stepped out of their shelter, sniffing on the ground in search of a bigger puddle to drink from.

Looking through his belongings, Prompto became worried. They had to get back to civilization some time so he could stock up on food. Luckily Cass always found enough for herself, but he couldn't live from dry grass and puddle water. He only had a few slices of jerky left and the bottle he kept filling up as soon as he found water was almost empty.

"Looks like we need to hurry a bit today." He said as he ripped off a piece of jerky. This had to suffice for a while. Cass gave a soft snort as an answer and they started moving.

It was early and still cool, but Prompto feared it would become hot and sultry soon so he tried to speed up a bit as long as the weather was bearable. He tried to walk in about the direction they saw the cloud the day before, now hoping that it could have been a car or someone on a Chocobo. Anything that could point him to a place where he could get his hands on some food. And maybe take a shower, he possibly smelled more like a Spiracorn than a human by now.

After a while of silent walking, Prompto noticed something lying on the ground before them. It was yet too far away to see what exactly it was but as they moved closer as it started resembling a carcass.

Moving even closer he could see what it was and glanced over to Cass. She seemed not too fond of going near it and slowed down.

It was a dead Spiracorn. It couldn't have been too long ago that it died because there wasn't any bad smell assaulting their noses so far. Not wanting to go near it, both of them avoided the dead animal but for some reason Prompto looked back and hesitated in his steps.

"Where are the horns?" He asked as he slowly walked near the carcass. Cass had stopped but didn't want to follow Prompto back. No wonder.

Squatting down, he looked at the creature's forehead where the horns should have been but only found two stumps. He swallowed and stood up again to go back to Cass.

Suddenly he didn't feel like talking at all. The picture didn't sit well with him. The horns weren't broken off during a fight, it looked way too smooth. Like they were sawed off. Everything inside him screamed just one word.

Poacher.

They walked in silence while the day went on and became hotter by the hour. By midday the humid air was near unbearable but Prompto didn't want to stop and Cass didn't seem to mind. There wasn't any option for them to hide from the sun anyway, the last time he saw trees that weren't looking like stick figures made of dry branches that wouldn't throw any proper shadow was the day before, so they could just as well keep moving.

Prompto was mostly staring in front of him, putting one foot in front of the other time and time again without thinking about it too much. He waited for something to pop up in the horizon, but he was getting drowsy from the heat and his vision became fuzzy. He jumped a bit when Cass made a nervous move next to him and put a hand against her neck to calm her. A moment later he saw why she was so scared and wanted to puke.

"Oh no." He now used both hands to calm his friend down while he looked stunned at the dead Spiracorns to their right. "What happened here?"

Letting Cass walk away from the creepy scenario, he went over to take a better look at them. The foreboding feeling was instantly confirmed. None of the animals had horns anymore. He felt anger rising inside him and took a deep breath. Looking around, he saw that they were all simply slaughtered, he even saw foals. They didn't have horns at that age, still they were just killed alongside their parents. His thoughts wandered to the herd they were following a while back. Those weren't possibly the same animals as the herd that went into a different direction, but that didn't made it hurt less.

Looking around between the corpses, he finally found something helpful. Tire tracks. Two vehicles, he guessed. Whistling for Cass he started to walk faster again. Thirst and hunger were forgotten, there was something more important he had to do.

The rain must have washed away the tracks near the first dead Spiracorn, but these looked more fresh and were still visible enough to be followed, and the further he followed them the deeper they became.

After what felt like hours of walking alongside the tracks, Prompto looked up and finally saw something. Two off-road vehicles and some people around them. His steps got faster with his rising anger as he saw another dead body near one of the cars. The people seemed to notice him as some of them lifted their heads pointing at him.

No.

Not at him, they were pointing at Cass.

Whipping around he threw his arm up as he yelled at Cass, "Cass, go! RUN!"

He winced as he heard shots but Cass was already galloping away and the bullets just hit sand. His heart dropped as he heard the engines revving. Without thinking further he called his pistol, aiming at the wheels. It was a first hit and the driver could only keep so much control not to let the car roll over.

"Stop it!" Prompto called out walking towards them. They didn't even look like poachers, but normal hunters.

"Cass hasn't hurt anyone. And I'm sure those other Spiracorns haven't either, why are you killing them?"

"What are you doing out here, boy?" One of the hunters asked as he climbed out of the car with the flat tire. The other vehicle had stopped behind him, engine still running. There were five people.

"Did'ya hear? I think he gave that beast a name." One of the guys behind him laughed.

"You know how much you get for a helixhorn in good condition?" The older guy in front of him said as he pulled out his own pistol. "It's all about money, boy. Nobody will miss a few more Spiracorns. Now put the gun away before you hurt yourself. Or I will." He pointed the gun at Prompto.

The blond swallowed down the forming lump in his throat and lifted his pistol as well.

"No." He said with a low voice. "You will. And then you will leave and leave the Spiracorns alone once and for all."

All five of them started laughing as he said that.

"Are you serious, boy?" One of the guys behind him said. The three guys from the car behind him had gotten out as well and Prompto heard the cocking of guns. "And who will take care of that? You?" He made a few slow steps towards Prompto, still pointing his weapon at him. "Tell me...would anybody miss a dirty tramp like you if we put you down like beasts?"

He bit his lip as he heard those words. Would anyone? Possibly not. The thought hurt more than he had anticipated. Then he saw Cass. She was standing not too far away, looking over at them intently. They would kill her.

Shaking his head, Prompto looked back up at the guy in front of him.

"None of your business." He said, straightening his back a bit more. "Now leave. Before I kill you."

That didn't sit well with them. The taunting look on their faces became angry and Prompto prepared himself for a fight.

"You will hurt yourself, boy. This is my last warning."

"Same here. Leave."

Now their leader had it. Pointing the gun at Prompto's chest he pulled the trigger but Prompto was already in fight mode, body acting on its own. He turned just in time to just be grazed by the bullet which then hit one of the guys behind him. With a cry he fell over. Prompto didn't even notice, still staring at the blank eyes of the old hunter. He had pulled the trigger as well.

The old guy fell over as well, a hole right between his eyes. Then the other hunters started screaming, pulling their weapons and aiming at him. Prompto made a jump behind one of the cars to avoid the first storm of bullets, jumping up and taking aim himself as soon as it went quiet. He hit another one twice, the first round causing him to stumble, the second throwing him to the ground. He wasn't dead yet but Prompto had to duck again before he could finish.

He crawled to the other side of the car, hoping to catch them off guard and had a straight line for a killing blow on one of them.

'Two left,' he thought to himself readying his next move when the next blow made the car he was hiding behind shake. Prompto froze instantly. He hadn't realized one of them had a shotgun.

Cursing to himself he made a few blind shots, not wanting to get his head blown off.

"We're gonna get ya, buddy!" One of them snarled. "And I will skin you alive for what you've done, I swear."

Prompto heard steps approaching from both sides. Damn it. No matter how he would turn, one of them would be behind him. Pressing his back against the car he stared straight ahead, not knowing what to do anymore. He was done, that was it.

He heard the cocking of the shotgun and prepared himself for the coming pain. But heard only thumping hooves and a muffled cry as something slammed hard into the car. Jerking his eyes back open he saw Cass right in front of him, behind her the guy with the shotgun on the ground but still alive. The other man just stood there completely dumbfounded about what just happened.

Without even thinking about it, Prompto grabbed Cass' mane and jumped up. The mare turned on her heels and sped away, bullets now flying around them as the hunter had woken from his stupor. He didn't dare to look back and soon he heard what he hoped not to. The engine of the remaining car roared and soon they were right behind him. Prompto lay flat on Cass' neck and closed his eyes for a moment, readying himself.

"Just keep running, girl." He whispered, then he lifted his upper body up again and turned, pointing his gun at the driver. Next to him sat the shotgun guy, already aiming at Cass. Prompto was faster on the trigger, hitting the guy's shoulder and making him instantly drop the shotgun.

The other guy shot as well but with one hand on the steering wheel he couldn't really aim. Still one bullet grazed Prompto's side, the other one his cheek. Prompto didn't even flinch, he didn't even realize that he'd been hit, his body overflowing with adrenaline.

For the last time, he aimed. The driver tried to duck but it was too late. Prompto's next shot hit him right in the head.

He fell down against the wheel, jerking it to the left, steering it right into a rock wall where it went up in flames.

Prompto turned again, still not fully realizing what had happened. He dismissed his pistol and buried both hands into Cass' mane.

"Thank you." He wheezed, slowly losing his tunnel vision.


	12. Galahd

**First things first, I have one thing to say and an announcement to make! :D**

 **1\. Doing some research, I found a few different opinions where Galahd would be and I settled with it being north of the Cleigne region, because there is a big part od land there where it definitely could lie, please bear with me, this works best with what I have planned for this story.**

 **2\. Now to that nice little announcement. I have thought about it for a while now and I've decided that I would be a fun thing to take story requests from you guys, so whoever is in the mood of it - my tumblr name is freaky-trickster, you can send me an ask there, or message me here or write a comment(seriously, comments make me happy) and ask for it there, whatever you like more. I can write about the Chocobros, but also other characters from the game or Kingsglaive, you are free to choose, just bear with me if I don't know a certain character too well, I'm trying my best. Genre doesn't matter, I would even give romance-y stuff a try, just please nothing NSFW, I just can't write that, I'm sorry. OwO The writing may take a while but I promise, I'll do my best!**

 **But now, back to the story, have fun reading. :D**

* * *

Once the adrenaline wore down, the realization came, accompanied by fear. What had he done? He just killed people without even thinking. Real people.

Cass had slowed down after a while and Prompto slid down after finally getting her to stop. He needed to sit still for a moment and process what happened.

Once again he heard Ardyn's voice.

'It's in your genetic code, you know? This urge to kill everything that threatens you. And no one knows when this switch will be turned over. Or by what.'

"Did I turn?" Prompto whispered as he watched his hands starting to shake. He clenched his fists, trying to stop the shaking but it only got worse. The world around him fell silent except for the rushing of his own blood in his ears. He felt his right arm start throbbing. Nothing had happened for days while he traveled with Cass, he didn't even think about it anymore. Now it all came rushing back like it had only waited for a moment like this to come.

Cradling his arm, he was about to give in and just collapse or have another panic attack when he felt something soft pressing against his forehead. Blinking away some fresh tears, he slowly looked up and instantly was hit with a waft of hot air. Again.

He couldn't help but laugh and pressed his face against the soft nose for a moment. Cass accepted it, waiting patiently for him to calm down again.

Thinking back to the time where he wandered around alone, when he felt so small and scared, he took a deep breath and tried to push it aside. He wasn't alone anymore.

"Thank you, Cass." He said, reaching out to hug her head. "You're a real saviour, you know that?"

He wiped his wet face and winced when he touched the gash on his right cheek. He totally forgot about that. Checking himself for more injuries he found another deep graze in his side and the smaller cut on his left upper arm. In a moment of panic he checked Cass as well, but she was unharmed. To try and stop the bleeding he opened the knot of the bandanna around his wrist but hesitated to pull it away, not fond of having to look at the scar.

After a moment of contemplating, he pulled it off and pressed it on his cheek to staunch the blood flow. His clothes could soak up the blood from the other wound and the cut on his arm wasn't even that deep, it all would stop eventually. At least that was what he kept telling himself in his mind to stay calm.

"Let's go on then, shall we?" he said and started walking, but stopped again after just a few steps when he noticed Cass wasn't moving. "Hey, what's up? You coming or what?" The mare didn't move, she was just standing there, looking at him like she was waiting for something.

Prompto went back to her, petting her neck while once again looking her over with worried eyes, thinking he had overlooked a wound somewhere.

"Wait." He stopped looking for blood or anything when he realized what she might be waiting for. "You'll let me-" He stopped himself from talking and hesitantly grabbed her mane with one hand. 'Just climb up before she changes her mind,' he thought, pulling himself up. It was a tad more difficult without the adrenaline giving him that last push and he struggled for a moment to get back up on the huge animal.

Sitting on the Spiracorn's back again, he needed a few seconds to take everything in. It felt completely different than sitting on a Chocobo. She was way bigger than the birds and he could feel the muscles working in her back when she moved just a little bit. The last time he tried to ride her ended in her bucking and so he was a bit stiff at first. What if that 'rescue-ride' was only an exception to save him? And now she was just fooling around with him and the next moment would send him flying through the air again? How was he even supposed to make her move?

The first thing he could think of was like they worked with the Chocobos, using his heels to make her walk, but...what about turns when he didn't have reins?

The blond jerked and gripped Cass' mane with both hands when he felt her start moving, easing into a slow walk with now signs of bucking. He needed a few minutes to get accustomed to this, her walking cycle felt so different to a Chocobo's but when he became used to it and straightened his back again after sitting hunched forward and ready to fall when she started walking, it was actually pretty nice.

Looking around, enjoying the view from his new vantage point, he started smiling again. The smile let his wound sting but he just pressed the dirty bandanna on it and ignored it.

Leaning forward, he stroked Cass' neck.

"You say which direction. I trust you."

* * *

Libertus looked up at the sky. The sun was about to set and there was not a single cloud, but the pain in his leg told him there would be rain soon again. Maybe even another thunderstorm. It wouldn't be that bad for the crops and the general surroundings to get a bit more water, it still needed a lot of time to grow. But for today, he was done. And damn hungry.

He was about to walk back towards his house when a movement in the corner of his eye caught his attention and he stopped and turned his head. There was something coming. Libertus squinted against the setting sun, trying to see what it was and did a double-take to confirm he was still awake.

"Would you look at that." He said, still not fully believing his eyes. "A boy on a Spiracorn. I think I finally went nuts."

As he stood there, waiting for the strange duo to arrive, he noticed the boy sitting slightly tipped to one side and with every move the animal made he seemed to tilt more. Libertus started walking towards them, hoping he would be fast enough but his already worn leg started acting up and he could just watch as the blond eventually tipped too far to the side and fell. He flopped on the ground like a lifeless ragdoll and Libertus feared he just dropped dead.

The Spiracorn gave a warning snort when he came closer and Libertus walked more slowly, eyes still on the boy who wasn't moving at all. "It's okay," he tried to calm the agitated mare, "I just wanna look at your friend. That's why you brought him here, right? To get help?" He wasn't sure it a wild animal could actually do things like this but his talking seemed to help and she backed up a little so he could look at the blond.

Pressing two fingers on his neck, he searched for a pulse and took a relieved breath when he felt it. It was weak and slightly irregular; Libertus blamed the scorching heat that had offended the area the whole day for this.

Looking at his face, smeared with caked blood and red from the heat, Libertus shook his head.

"Where the hell did you come from?"

* * *

Prompto felt like he was floating in absolute nothingness. It felt good. No pain, no heat, no noise. He felt at peace. Was he dead? He tried to move his arms but they felt heavy and like they didn't belong to his body. That was weird.

He breathed in a bit deeper and felt something. A dull pain he couldn't fully locate.

'I have to wake up,' he thought and tried to move again. 'I'm not dead.' He gritted his teeth as he actually came to and the first thing he felt was pain. His whole body ached and now he wished himself back into the painless void, it was so much nicer there.

With a soft groan he pressed his face into the pillow.

Pillow?

Prompto froze instantly. Cracking his eyes open just a bit, he found himself in a dimly lit room, lying in a bed. He was alone and the only noise was rain against the window. Pushing himself up onto his elbows he tried to remember what happened. He was sitting on Cass, letting her choose the direction. It was hot and he started feeling sick after a while. That was all. Did he black out?

The door on the other side of the room opened and Prompto sat up straight as a man came in. He froze for a second as well, visibly surprised at seeing Prompto awake, then he smiled.

"Look who's finally awake. You hungry?" He asked, walking towards Prompto but stopped, as the blond scooted over to the side until he was pressed against the wall.

Libertus raised an eyebrow. His guest looked scared and eyed him up and down suspiciously. Raising his hands in a calming matter, he made a few steps back and to the side to sit down on a small bench next to the door. It was no need to scare him after who knows what happened to him in the desert.

"It's alright, you're safe here," he said, "Name's Libertus. You and your companion came from the desert. And just in time, might I say. You're lucky you didn't get a heatstroke."

Relaxing a bit as Libertus remained at a safe distance, Prompto listened up. "Companion?" he asked, then the realization hit him. "Cass? Where is she? Is she alright?" He tried to get out of the bed, but because of the sudden movement black spots obscured his vision and he decided, that standing up wouldn't be that good of an idea just now.

"Hey now, calm down." Libertus was about to jump forward to push him down again, but it wasn't necessary, as the boy swayed a moment before relaxing back against the wall. "So Cass is her name, huh?" He said, chuckling slightly, "She's alright, don't worry. But boy, she is intelligent. Tried to impale me as I wanted to take you out of the sun. Wasn't easy to persuade her to leave you to me but I managed somehow. She is fed and in the Chocobo stables."

"I want to see her." Prompto said, still worried. Libertus didn't seem dangerous to him but after all that happened he didn't even want to try and trust someone just yet.

Libertus laughed at his words. "Sure you can, if you can stand upright and walk over by yourself. I won't carry you."

Knowing that this wouldn't be possible, Prompto looked down at his lap and fell silent. It took a few second before he realized another thing. Those weren't his clothes. He was wearing a simple shirt and pants but they didn't belong to him. Slightly panicked now, he looked around the room.

Seeing the boy's reaction, Libertus spoke before he could. "Before you're asking: Yes, I took your clothes. You were smelling like a dead animal and everything was full of blood, that isn't very sanitary, you know? I had to tend to your wounds and cool you down so I figured it wouldn't kill you if I put something clean on you. Or would you rather lie there naked?"

Prompto didn't say anything but his cheeks became a light shade of pink and he felt bad. Though he wasn't okay at all with the fact that a complete stranger had changed his clothes, he meant to help. Touching his cheek, he felt a big patch covering the wound he had there. Same thing for his other injuries.

"I still have your clothes and didn't touch any of your belongings." Libertus said, looking for eye contact but the blond refused and kept looking down at his hands in his lap. He had covered his right wrist with the other hand and Libertus thought about asking about it. Of course he had seen the bad wound when he checked his guest over. It looked like he had tried to get rid of an old tattoo but didn't really succeed in this task. The tissue was already in the process of scarring and Libertus couldn't do much more than clean it. But, this was definitely a way too private matter and looking at how he seemed to hide it, Libertus decided to rather not ask.

"You should drink," He said, nodding his head towards a glass of water on the nightstand. "I poured something into you when you were out but that was not much."

Prompto licked his dry lips and gazed over to the glass, hesitating for a few seconds. He wanted to get rid of the dry taste in his mouth and it felt like the water was calling him now. Libertus didn't seem like the guy to poison him for whatever reason, and so Prompto nodded and took the glass. Feeling the cool water run down his throat, he emptied the glass in a few fast gulps, relishing in its freshness.

"Careful, don't choke on me," Libertus said with a smile. He waited until he had finished drinking before made another try to gain his trust a little more. "Listen, I don't know what happened to you out there, but I can assure you, you're safe now. And even if this sounds a bit difficult, I ask you to trust me. Just a bit. Your name for example would help."

Having calmed down enough to think rationally, Prompto thought for a moment, pondering if it would change anything if he'd give him a false name.

"Prompto," he finally said. What good would it do to lie. "And thank you. For, ya know...saving me."

Feeling relieved that he finally opened up a bit, Libertus nodded and stood up again. Prompto glanced over warily, but compared to his first reaction, that was nothing.

"Alright, Prompto," he said, walking over to take the empty glass from him, still trying to keep some distance between them. "Gonna refill that for you. And you might have noticed that it's the middle of the night and I advise you to catch a bit more sleep. But if you want I can make you a sandwich or something. You look like you haven't had a real meal for a while."

Prompto still was skeptical as Libertus moved near him, but he forced himself to calm down, Libertus obviously was no danger. It would only look silly if he kept making a scene just because that guy came near him.

The thought of a sandwich made his mouth water though and he nodded eagerly at the question. "I really haven't. Sandwich sounds awesome."

"Alright then. Be right back," Libertus said with a wink and left the room.

Alone again, Prompto situated himself coss-legged on the bed. Now that he had slept and drank a bigger amount than in the past two or three days combined, he already felt way better, though still sore and slightly tired. The promise of food made him stay awake though and he used the time to look around the room a bit. It was sparsely furnished and there were no pictures or anything that could tell him where he was. Looking out of the window by the bed, he saw nothing but darkness and raindrops pattering against the glass.

The noise of the door made him shift his attention back on Libertus, who came back in with a refilled glass and a plate.

"There you go." He said, putting both on the nightstand. "It's nothing special, I'm not used to cooking for guests or anything. But it's edible, I promise."

Prompto caught himself comparing Libertus' food with the pieces of culinary art Ignis did for them. It was nothing compared to that, but after weeks of living off jerky, dried fruit and wild berries, this looked like heaven. Muttering a silent thanks he grabbed one of the pieces and took a bite, instantly sinking back a little. It tasted like heaven, too.

A chuckle made him look up and he felt his face go hot again when he saw Libertus still standing there, watching him. He must have looked too weird.

"Haven't seen that reaction to my sandwiches from anyone, yet," he said with a lopsided smile. This time, the blond smiled back shyly. It didn't feel wrong and Libertus' smile reached his eyes. It felt good to meet a genuinely nice person after being alone for so long. Not that he didn't appreciated Cass' presence, quite the opposite, he would never want to replace her with anything else, but he also couldn't deny that he had missed human contact.

Before he took another bite, he looked up, shifting a bit where he was sitting. "Um..." he began and Libertus cocked his head slightly, waiting for the question that was about to come. "Wh-where am I-I mean...the area?"

Libertus raised his eyebrows. He didn't even know where he was? Either the poor guy had hit his head or he had been wandering aimlessly for longer than he had guessed.

"Galahd," he answered, sitting down on the bench again. "You have found one of the last towns of Galahd, my friend."

Prompto, who was about to take another bite, stopped mid-movement. Galahd? His hunger was stronger than his surprise and so he resumed letting this information sink down while chewing. He had learned about Galahd at school. Niflheim basically trampled the area until nothing was left. Though, there obviously was still something left. Also, Galahd was in the far north of Lucis, he must have traveled a huge distance over this time.

"Oh, you definitely have." Libertus' voice pulled him back out of his thoughts and he embarrassingly realized, that he must have spoken his last thought out loud. But before he could say anything else, the larger man got up.

"Eat up and rest, alright?" he said, "We will talk more tomorrow, you can sleep as long as you need."

Prompto nodded, taking another bite. "Libertus," he said, stopping the man before he could leave the room, all the while noticing a slight limp in his walk. When he turned, Prompto looked up, meeting the eyes of the other for the first time, "Thank you."

"Don't mention it."


	13. Hospitality of strangers

Sleep was something he didn't have to wait for. After finishing his late-night meal, Prompto could barely keep his eyes open. Wrapping himself in the sheets he was out within seconds.

When he woke up again, the sun was already high up. Feeling bad that he had slept so long, he climbed out of the bed and stretched carefully. He was still sore, no surprise there, but sleeping in a bed after weeks of hard ground or no sleep at all had helped a lot to let his muscles relax a bit more.

His gaze then wandered to his wrist, seeing that there was a clean bandage around it as well. So Libertus saw it and didn't do anything? Would he ask about it? Carefully he lifted the bandage a bit to look under it. It smelled like there had been some ointment put on it and from what he could see, it still looked as ugly as the last time. Flexing the wrist a bit, he felt the slight soreness because of the injury, but nothing more. No tingling in his arm, no strange twitches. All these things had receded over the time, but Prompto wasn't sure if that was a good thing. For all he knew it could start again any moment.

But for now he decided to be okay with it being as it was. Why not enjoy the calm for as long as it lasts. The thing he worried about most right now was Cass. Libertus did say she was alright, but he'd rather make sure of that himself. After all, the Spiracorn was currently his closest and only friend.

Stepping out of the room, he found himself at the end of a small hallway. He heard voices coming from outside and slowly walked along the hall in their direction until he found Libertus. The man was standing with his back to him, leaning against a door frame and was talking to someone outside.

He awkwardly cleared his throat to make himself known to them. Libertus turned his head and a smile appeared on his face.

"Well look who's awake." He said, turning towards him completely, letting Prompto see who he was talking with. Outside stood a young man with dark hair and about Prompto's age and height. He raised a hand to greet Prompto with a huge smile. Prompto nodded back shyly.

"This is Talion," Libertus introduced him, "He's one of the youngest here and about the only one whose clothes would fit you."

Looking down, Prompto realized again, that this still weren't his clothes. "Oh, so these are-"

"It's alright, keep'em," Talion said, waving his hand, "I have enough and I'm happy to help."

Libertus laughed as the blond seemed to not know what to say to that. Prompto looked to the ground feeling a bit embarrassed about his shyness seemingly coming out full force now. A simple 'Thank you' would have done the trick, possibly, but his brain blocked everything for a moment there. He lifted his head again, when Libertus walked over to him.

"Guessing you want to see your friend?" Libertus said and then nodded towards Talion. "He took care of her while you were out, he can take you to her."

Prompto's heart skipped a beat as he heard that and nodded eagerly, walking over to Talion with more confidence now. Stepping outside, he looked around for a moment to finally see where Cass had brought him. Most of the buildings looked makeshift, many of them were still ruins and Prompto couldn't help but feel bad. It looked like the place had been completely destroyed once and people were still trying to deal with the damage. Curiosity gnawed inside him. How was it that people still lived here? He didn't dare to ask. Not now at least, he didn't want to be this the first thing he would talk about with Talion.

Mentioned man was walking in front of him, only throwing occasional glances over his shoulder at Prompto to see if he was still there. Seeing that the blond was a little bit overwhelmed by everything, he chose to wait before bombarding him with questions. It definitely wasn't a common thing to have a Spiracorn as a pet.

They kept walking in silence until Prompto smelled something familiar and his head perked up.

"Do you have Chocobos here?" He asked, speeding up a bit to walk next to Talion so he could properly talk to him.

Talion nodded and seemed somewhat proud. "We do. And I'm the one in charge, I even raised some of them myself." That seemed to break the ice. Prompto's eyes grew big in excitement.

"Dude, that's awesome. I always wanted to raise a baby Chocobo."

"Those little buggers can be a real handful and you can't stay mad at them for long because they are way too cute. It's stressful, but worth it, when they get bigger and start behaving." He slowed down a bit when they reached a building that looked, and smelled, like a barn. "Here we are."

Prompto took a deep breath. The distinct smell of Chocobos and their noises seemed to be everywhere and he felt at home. Connected to the stables was a pasture as well as some smaller Paddocks, one of them was occupied by Cass, who looked like she was about to jump the fence any minute, whinnying and looking in their direction. Without thinking further, Prompto started sprinting over to her, nearly climbing over the fence separating them. He would have, if his still sore muscles hadn't decided to act up again and so he threw his arms around her neck instead and hugged her tightly.

When he heard Talion laugh behind him, he felt his cheeks heating up a bit, but he only let go of her when he was sure that his legs wouldn't buckle under him after the short sudden strain.

"It took me a while to put her in there, but we thought this would be better than having her run around without anyone who could control her." Talion said after a moment, no longer suppressing his urge to ask some questions, "She's really attached to you, how did you manage to tame her?"

Prompto leaned with his back against the fence, letting Cass ruffle her nose through his hair and rubbing her head against his, visibly enjoying the affection coming from the animal. It felt good to be back together with her.

"I didn't." He said after thinking for a moment. "It just kinda...happened. I saved her from some Havocfangs and cared for her wounds and when she was healthy again she wouldn't leave me, even when we found her herd. Then she saved me when some crazy hunters out there tried to kill me. So...I think it's a friendship thing we have, helping each other and stuff."

Talking about it like that and speaking all these facts out loud felt kinda weird to him. There was no other way to describe how he and Cass had found each other, but it sounded like he had made all this up and if it wasn't about Cass still nibbling his hair affectionately, he probably wouldn't have believed himself.

Talion had stared at Prompto in awe as he was talking, but rolled his eyes when he mentioned the hunters. "These guys are a pain," he growled, "They're killing everything they find, even Chocobos for their feathers and beaks, just to earn some extra money. We had to chase them away a few times when we felt they were too close to the village."

"Won't happen again."

"What do you mean?" Talion frowned. Prompto had looked away, chewing on his lower lip for a moment.

"I killed them." He finally said, earning a surprised look from Talion.

"You did what? All of them? H-how?"

"I remember five, if that's all of them, then yes." He touched the patch on his cheek. "Gave me a few souvenirs, though. They had killed a whole herd of Spiracorns out there. I...just wanted to stop them and send them away but if I haven't done it I'm sure they would have killed me."

His hands started trembling as the memory of that day came flooding back to him. He had managed to shut it out so far but now that he was awake again and talking about it, he once again felt like a monster.

Sensing that something wasn't right with Prompto, Talion leaned against the fence as well, exchanging a wary look with Cass, who put her head between the two of them by resting it on Prompto's shoulder.

"You did good," he said after a moment, "I guess I speak for the whole village when I say thank you for that. Nobody will miss them, trust me."

"But hey were humans." Prompto said, his voice barely audible. "I killed them without even thinking about it. Just-just did. "

"So?" Talion crossed his arms. "You defended yourself. Killing a human is never a good thing, yes. But Libertus says that there are times when you have no choice. And he knows what he's talking about."

"He does?"

"Yes, of course. You know, he was in Insomnia when it all happened. He was a Kingsglaive for many years."

"He was a Glaive?" Prompto leaned forward a bit to look around Cass' head and at Talion. "Really?"

"I'm not lying.", Talion laughed, "He even met princess Lunafreya. He was the one who took her out of the city so she could flee. And now imagine that: She even promised to visit him here, together with Prince Noctis."

Hearing Noct's name gave him a short sting in his chest, but he tried to ignore it. Talion didn't need to know about this, so he just nodded.

"Wow, that's really cool." He said, leaning his head against Cass'.

For a few long minutes there was silence between the two as both were lost in their own thoughts, then Talion spoke up again, startling Prompto a bit, who had focused on Cass' deep breathing.

"Dang it, I completely forgot, aren't you hungry by now?"

Blinking a few times Prompto had to actually think about it, before he nodded, "I think I've become used to being hungry but now that you mention it, I'm starving."

"Then let's head back." Talion pushed himself off from the fence and started walking in the direction of Libertus' house again. "He doesn't look like it but he is not a bad cook."

Prompto hugged Cass once again, whispering a silent 'Be back soon.' in her fur, before following Talion.

Walking back, Prompto tried to memorize the way and looked around more intently now. There weren't a lot of people around but every now and then they would meet someone. Prompto was greeted politely and with a sincere smile, which made him feel accepted even without knowing any one of them. It felt strange after being alone for so long.

Talion was walking in front of him again, his stride a bit too much for Prompto's still sore legs just yet. He was talking about life in the village, but Prompto wasn't listening anymore as he felt someone's eyes on him, the feeling making the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. He stopped and turned around to find the source of the uncomfortable feeling and saw a man. Standing inside of what once must have been a house, but was now nothing more than some walls and a lot of debris, was a man wearing the typical Kingsglaive garb. Prompto knew how those looked because many of the Glaives lived in the city like normal people and you could see them in their outfits every now and then.

They stared at each other for what felt like hours until Prompto finally was able to avert his gaze. Talion was a bit ahead of him now but hadn't realized yet that Prompto wasn't following anymore. He looked back at the ruin once again but the man was gone, as if he'd never been there. Even when Prompto looked around he couldn't find anyone walking away who looked like that man. Not sure what to make of it he tried to shrug it off and caught back up to Talion. Still, he couldn't forget the look on his face. He looked so sad.

Libertus was already waiting when they arrived and the house smelled like stew, finally waking his stomach which started rumbling near painfully. Talion couldn't stay, he had to tend to the animals - and Cass, as far as she would let him – and left again for the Chocobo stables.

"Let me guess, she was happy to see you?"

"Well, we both were."

"Looks like it." Libertus chuckled, pointing at Prompto's head. "You look a bit disheveled. Come, food's ready and you definitely need to eat."

Following Libertus, he combed through his hair with his fingers so it wouldn't look that bad anymore. Then he noticed some photographs hanging on the walls, most of them showing Libertus with various people, all in their Kingsglaive garb. On some of them he saw a familiar face.

"Libertus?" He called out to the man. "Who is that?"

Libertus turned and walked over to Prompto, who pointed at one of his Photos. His heart became heavy for a moment as he saw who he was pointing at.

"A good friend. Nyx. We grew up together, and we even both joined the Kingsglaive. He was a great guy."

"'Was'?" Prompto asked. "But – I just saw him."

In a matter of seconds Libertus' face seemed to be made of stone. "Don't joke about that, boy."

"But I didn't" Prompto protested as he made a few steps back, not liking the look Libertus gave him. "I saw him standing in one of the destroyed buildings. He even wore that exact outfit."

"That isn't possible, Prompto." Libertus said a tad too loud, instantly biting his lip as he saw Prompto wincing slightly. He took a deep breath before he talked again in a normal tone.

"It simply can't be, alright? He is dead. He died a hero, defending hundreds of people. Without him I wouldn't be here."


	14. A ghost from the past?

Awkward silence followed them around for the next thirty minutes or so while they were eating. Prompto fought against the urge to just bury his face in his meal, it was so delicious. But at the same time, he still felt bad about what happened, even though he still believed in what he saw.

"Talion told me before that you were a member of the Kingsglaive," he finally broke the silence, letting his curiosity take over. "How was it? I mean...if you wanna talk about it."

Libertus seemed to be far away for a moment, recalling some of the memories and Prompto was about to apologize again when he nodded with a soft smile on his face.

"I came there in a very hard time but not everything was bad." And with this he started talking. How he and Nyx came to Insomnia, how he became a member of the Kingsglaive, both sides, good and bad, about living in this big city, missing home. And finally, how it all went down.

Prompto listened with fascination, not once saying a word. Hearing about the fall of Insomnia from someone who witnessed it first-hand made Prompto's heart ache in sadness, but he stayed silent, not wanting to interrupt.

All he could utter when Libertus finished his story with the parting of him and Lunafreya, and her promise, was a silent "Wow."

Sensing something in the way he looked, Libertus leaned forward, making eye contact.

"Was Insomnia your hometown?"

Prompto tensed up for a moment. Was it really?

He nodded. "Yes. I grew up there." That was the truth. He didn't remember anything from Niflheim, never felt connected in any way, so why call it 'home'?

"I went on a camping trip with some friends so we weren't there when the attack happened." This wasn't wrong either but to evade further questions he kept quiet about whom he was with.

"Why are you alone, then? Did something happen?"

Prompto didn't want to answer, what should he say anyway? That someone told him that he was a monster that could snap at any time? That his 'friends' surely won't take kindly to him if they'd know? That all this was eating him up inside? Hell, what would happen when Libertus would find out? He already saw the code. Or what was left of it.

"Prompto."

His head, which had turned down to stare at the table, snapped back up. His vision was blurry on the edges and he rubbed his eyes for a moment.

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to." Libertus said in an understanding way.

"We just...went our different ways." Prompto said, not wanting to leave the question unanswered. It wasn't a complete lie at least, so he didn't feel too bad. He'd have loved to just let it all out, to talk about it, but somehow he couldn't. Something inside him blocked and dismissed the thought as soon as it came up.

Libertus nodded, sparing him with further questions and leaned back in his chair, raising his eyebrows as he looked to the window.

"Well that took a long time, it's already dark out."

Prompto turned and laughed a bit at the fact. He hadn't even noticed it getting dark.

Libertus needed to go to sleep, giving his aching leg a rest; it never fully recovered from the injury of his last fight as a Glaive. But Prompto was free to stay awake if he wanted to, after all, he'd slept until noon and was old enough to decide for himself. "Just don't stray too far, you know why."

Prompto was indeed not tired enough and decided to visit Cass once more; and maybe Talion, if he still was at the stables. When he walked past the destroyed building, where he saw Nyx – or what he believed was him – before, he stopped and thought for a moment. Nobody was outside at this hour, so nobody would see him. He made a few hesitant steps. Thinking about the fact that he had seen the image of a dead man didn't sit well within him, but this made him want to prove that there was nothing. Maybe it was just the heat.

He made two more steps. It would feel better when he had made sure that no one was there, he tried to convince himself. And looking was the easiest way. Giving himself a mental push, Prompto walked through what must have been the entrance once. It was too dark to see much. He could make out rubble everywhere, some destroyed furniture. With most of the walls at least partially intact, he had to find a doorway when he walked from room to room to not fall over too much debris.

In one of the rooms, he had to pause for a moment, taking a deep breath. Suddenly, his emotions seemed out of control. He felt a chill, fear welling up inside him. He wanted to cry. But why? Nothing had happened. The feeling of being watched was there again and Prompto turned around. Nothing. He almost laughed at himself. Why should there be anything anyway, right?

He slowly turned and made his way outside again. The feeling of dread left him almost instantly as he hat left the building. Glad he could breathe freely again, he threw one last glance back at the dark hallway, before hurrying on.

There were still lights on at the stables. Feeling relief, Prompto sped up a bit, already whistling for Cass and got an answer straight away, hearing her whinnying and slamming a hoof against a wooden wall by the sound of it. The doors to the paddocks were all closed and so he walked into the barn, seeing Cass poking her head out of one of the stalls. In most of the other stalls were Chocobos, some of them seemingly annoyed by Cass' behaviour.

"Hey, girl." He greeted her, pushing her a bit backwards so he could enter the stall this time. "Couldn't just leave you alone for the day. I have to at least say good night, right?"

Cass rubbed her head at Prompto's side, showing open affection, which made the blond smile. Compared to how wary she was a few weeks ago and now shamelessly treating him like one of her own made him proud. He leaned against her shoulder, face buried in her mane, breathing in her distinct smell.

He wasn't sure if he'd dozed off for a minute, but it could very well be, because the next he remembered was him nearly falling, as Cass moved a bit to the side. She had lifted her head again, ears perked up, and was looking towards the doors. Straining his ears Prompto heard it too. There were steps outside. Leaning over the stall door he watched the barn doors, fear inside him rising for a moment, as one of the doors eventually opened.

As a familiar face came in sight, he breathed out, making Talion jump from the noise.

"Man, what are you doing here at this time?" Talion said, laughing at his own startled self. "Gave me quite the scare."

"How should I know that you're so easily scared?" Prompto said chuckling, pulling himself up to sit on the stall door. Cass, seeing that as an invitation, laid her head on his legs and started nibbling at the seam of his shirt.

"She sure loves you." Talion stated as he threw some strong smelling herbs into the food tray of an old looking Chocobo.

"Looks like it." Prompto said, ruffling the thick fur on her forehead.

They were silent for a moment, Talion was leaned against the stall, watching the Chocobo carefully peck at the herbs.

"He's our oldest." He explained absent-mindedly, "Basically saw me growing up, since I got here."

"You lived here long?"

"Long enough." He stuffed his hands in his pockets, now leaning with his back against the stall. "The village got destroyed in the war, as did everything around, turning hills of grass and forests into a damn wasteland. But there were some pig-headed people who didn't flee to insomnia. Among them, my grandparents and my mother. They just couldn't leave. So they took shelter somewhere for a while and came back after a few years. I think I was thirteen or so at that time. They repaired and rebuilt many of the houses. Back then they couldn't take the animals with them but some of the Chocobos were still there, surviving somehow. Kip here was one of them."

Prompto smiled at this story. Their loyalty was one of the reasons why he loved Chocobos so much.

"I'm sure he will live some more years, as long as you care for him."

Talion chuckled lightly, but nodded as he petted Kip's head. "Oh be sure, I will. As long as he enjoys his life, I will make sure it stays that way."

Fiddling with Cass' mane Prompto argued a moment with himself, before he looked at Talion.

"Talion, this one building that is still in ruins, the one not far from Libertus'..."

"What about it?"

"Who lived there?"

Talion gave him a strange look, but Prompto didn't avert his gaze.

"Nyx Ulric lived there." Talion finally spoke, "With his sister and his mother, I think. That's what Libertus told me once."

"So you didn't know him?"

"No, I was too young. He and Libertus went to Insomnia, so even if I'd have met him, I must have been too small to remember. Why do you ask?"

"Just curious."

They kept talking about random things for a while, before deciding to finally leave and go to sleep. With Talion having to go in another direction, Prompto was once again alone, destined to pass Nyx's house again. He was starting to dislike that. As he got closer the ruin again, he told himself, just to walk past at a fast pace. Don't even look at it, look straight ahead. That would have been the plan. But as he was walking past the gaping entrance, he slowed his steps. He didn't mean to, he just did, becoming even slower until he stopped.

"Come on. Move," he whispered to himself, but his legs just started to shake a little. The dreadful feeling was back again, luckily not as bad as the last time. Thinking he saw something out of the corner of his eye, he turned his head towards the house again. Did something move in there?

"Hello?" He said, sounding awfully small in the quiet of the night. "Is someone there?"

No answer. Of course not, why would there? There was no one there, it was just his imagination.

Overcoming the stiffness in is legs and getting them to move again, Prompto walked on, shaking fists pushed deep in his pockets. He felt eyes on his back until he turned around the corner.

Silently he slipped through the door and tiptoed down the hallway so he wouldn't wake Libertus, who he heard snoring in his bedroom. In his own bed, Prompto curled up to a ball, his thoughts still on that house. Why was it bugging him so much? There was nothing there. Right?

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

Days went by and though Prompto had planned to leave as soon as he felt better, he found himself enjoying the time there. He had started helping Talion in the stables on a regular basis and on some days he accompanied Libertus, who basically just helped where hands were needed.

He got to know more of the villagers, though he still preferred hanging out with Talion and Libertus, both had gained enough of his trust that there were even times where Prompto could laugh freely and push his fears and sorrows to the far back of his head. It helped that his arm had not even once acted up in that time. It felt like having a family again, felt good enough that Prompto did everything he could to stop him from remembering Ardyn's words. He wanted it to last just a little bit longer.

The only thing that still made him nervous was this house. The shortest way to the stables went past it and though he tried to make a detour around it, most times he unconsciously chose the other path again. And every time he stopped. He stopped and looked at it until he realized it and forced himself to walk on. On many occasions he thought he saw something. A piece of fabric fluttering around the corner, a shadow moving in one of the doorways. When it was too late he started humming a random tune when he passed the house so as not to hear any disembodied footsteps and to calm him down a bit. That place outright scared him.

He had asked about Nyx a few times, just out of curiosity, and Libertus loved to talk about the things he and his friend did. The pranks when they where younger, the adventures as Kingsglaives or how life was before the war. It was hard to make Libertus talk about that time, but Prompto eventually found out that Nyx's mother and sister had died during the attack on their village. This was something that never really left Nyx and there had been days where he blamed himself for what happened. But it also drove him to always do everything he could. Prompto caught himself more than once staring at the pictures and thinking about that first day.

One particular day, Prompto was at the stables for hours on end. Talion had already left, but the gunner wanted to stay a bit longer, cuddling with Cass and bonding with two freshly hatched baby Chocobos. It was pitch black when he decided that it was time to go back.

He was in a good mood, a bit tired from the work and not even thinking about the house, walking with a slight spring in his step. Suddenly, he froze mid-step. His body felt numb and he took a slow shaky breath as he stared at the figure in front of him. It was still a fair distance away, but Prompto knew exactly where it was standing. Fear slowly took control over his body, every muscle tensing as they stared at each other. The figure was dark, but Prompto knew that it was staring at him.

This never happened before. Not even once! Never were there more than shadows in his peripheral vision apart from the first time. The night was utterly and terrifyingly silent, not even nocturnal birds or crickets. Prompto wanted to scream at the figure, scream for help, anything, but it was as if he was frozen solid. His body wouldn't budge.

Then the figure moved. It made just a few agonizingly slow steps towards him. But, it was enough to wake his body and turn on his heels to sprint back to the stables. He only felt safe again when he was back inside the barn, back pressed against the door. His breathing was way too fast and he could hear the blood thumping in his ears. Still shaking, he walked over to Cass' stall. The Spiracorn had poked her head out, giving him a puzzled look as he climbed into her stall again, sitting down in the fresh hay.

He couldn't remember what happened then, the next he knew he was lying curled up next to Cass, both hands entangled in her mane. Talion was standing outside her stall, looking at him in bewilderment.

"Don't tell me you've slept here?"

"Think so." Prompto said rubbing his eyes.

"Then you should hurry back to Libertus now, he was asking about you, cos you weren't in your room, he's worried."

"My bad. I didn't want to, it just..." He stopped, cringing a bit when the memory of the last night came back.

"Did something happen?"

"Yes...no...probably not. Just my head, it...I don't wanna talk about it. I'm sorry."

"It's alright, buddy."


	15. More than imagination

It wasn't alright. From that day on, Prompto started seeing shadows everywhere. He told himself time and time again that he was being paranoid and that night, there was most likely nothing but him being tired and imagining things. Still.

He tried to always stay in company of someone and avoided going out after dark. It became a habit for him, to sleep in the stables when he was there too long and it was already dark out. More than once he caught himself standing still on the way right before he had to pass the house and just not being able to. If he did pass, he felt eyes on him until he was far enough away.

It was becoming near unbearable when it wasn't shadows in the corner of his eyes anymore. He could see Nyx's figure walking down the street towards his house or standing near the door. Prompto was sure it was him, he had looked at the pictures in Libertus' house so many times that he memorized that image perfectly. But knowing that they wouldn't believe him, that Libertus might even get angry when he talked about seeing a dead man again and again, Prompto kept silent and tried to endure it, every new day hoping he wouldn't see anything this time.

He occupied himself with helping out and when there was nothing to do, he was with Cass, practicing to get on and off her back or riding around on one of the pastures. He was becoming quite good at it, even without saddle and reigns. He had tried to get her used to it, Talion had tinkered a bit with an old Chocobo bridle but the mare wouldn't have any of it and refused to move at all, when there was anything on her except for Prompto himself, and so the blond had to live with it.

* * *

Neither Talion nor Libertus were blind though. It was Talion who one day took Prompto aside to talk to him.

"Alright, buddy, how dumb do you think I am?" he asked, leaning against an empty stall with his arms crossed. At first, Prompto was genuinely confused before he understood what Talion meant. He averted his gaze and bit his lip. That was a moment he always dreaded.

"It's nothing, really," he lied. He couldn't even believe this pathetic sounding lie himself.

"Prompto. Again. I'm not stupid," Talion leaned a bit forward to regain eye contact. "You've been acting all weird for two weeks now. You sleep in the stables when you can't be back at Libertus' before dark, you act like you're being followed. What's wrong? You know you can tell us, right?"

Still gnawing at his lip, Prompto nodded, but stayed silent. He wanted to, but he couldn't bear to look at Talion.

"I think...I'm just paranoid," he finally broke the silence. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and turned his back to Talion. "It's strange and all, but...I think my head's just a little messed up from...something."

"Then why the obsession with Nyx's house?"

Prompto felt a cold shiver run down his back. Was it that obvious? He still had his back turned to Talion but he knew that the other one was giving him this 'I got you'-look.

"I saw you, Prompto," Talion said and walked around him to look him in the eye again. "I saw you trying to avoid to pass it as well as standing right in front of it, giving it a look like you're about to cry. I remember when you'd asked about it. And you're a bad liar, so tell me already."

Feeling ashamed that Talion read him like an open book, anger rose inside Prompto. "And for what? So you can laugh at me for being pathetic and paranoid?" he snapped.

"If you want me to do that, alright, I'm in. But I had planned to try and help you, actually."

Staring at Talion, the blond tried to find lies in his eyes, but he only looked at him with sincere concern. "So?" He cocked his head a bit to the side and raised one eyebrow. "Gonna tell me or what?"

Prompto sighed deeply and rubbed his face to relax his clenched jaw again.

"You won't laugh, right?"

"Promise."

Telling Talion about what happened since he saw Nyx the first time felt like a weight was lifted. It wasn't completely gone but sharing it with a friend helped the gunner to relax a bit more. Talion kept silent for a moment, when he had finished telling his story, processing what he just heard. He had to admit – it sounded completely crazy. On the other hand, this world was so full of secrets. He eventually shook his head and straightened his back.

"Ya know what? Let's go there now."

"Did you even listen to what I told you?"

"I did. And now I'm trying to do my part. And my best idea right now is; let's go there together. It's noon, so there will be enough light. Let's just look around a bit in there. Maybe, if you go there with someone else, it's not as intimidating and might turn out alright."

Prompto didn't like that idea one bit. In fact, he hated it. But Talion was already on his way and one thing Prompto had learned about him really fast was, he was the most stubborn person he'd ever met. If that guy wanted something, he would get it one way or another. So he followed, still unsure about how it would work out.

Standing in front of the destroyed building, it took Prompto a moment before he stepped through the doorway. He hadn't been in there since that one time and that had been by far enough for him.

"Uhm, one thing," Talion shot him an apologizing look. "Don't tell Libertus about this, alright? He really doesn't like it when someone sniffs around in here."

Prompto gave him a short nod, not wanting to start a discussion, but now he felt not only paranoid, but also like a criminal.

Though it was a nice and sunny day, inside the ruin it was almost chilly. Talion stepped carefully over some rubble and looked into the first room.

"I've never been in here," he admitted, "Gives you kind of a weird feeling."

"You don't say," Prompto huffed, following him with tense movements.

They explored some of the rooms in relative silence and without any incidents, finding only dirt and some parts of destroyed and charred furniture. Until they got to a room in the far back of the house. Crossing the threshold, Prompto immediately started feeling dizzy and swayed a little. Supporting himself on the wall he blinked rapidly to get his vision focused again. Talion's worried face appeared in front of him. He was talking, but only parts of the words came through.

"Need to sit," he slurred and just sat on the floor where he was standing. Something was not right. He remembered the last time in this house and he must have been in this very room, where he felt so weird. He felt it again now, but it was worse this time. Incredible sadness and fear rose inside him, it felt a lot like having set off his claustrophobia but that wasn't it. Something was different. It was fear of something...of someone that would come and kill him any moment. Dread. He buried his face in his hands and tried to breathe steadily.

When he heard shuffling, his head snapped back up. His hopes, that it was just Talion walking around, quickly vanished. The man had crouched down next to him, while the sound came from the other side of the room. Prompto felt a hard knot forming in his stomach. Talion must have heard the sound as well because he was looking in the same direction.

"Too loud to be a rat," Talion muttered and stood up to walk over where he heard the sound. Prompto wanted to stop him but there was just a raspy wheeze escaping his throat, which Talion ignored successfully.

Standing at the spot where the noise came from, he shuddered.

"Wow. It's really cold here," he said, feeling the air with his hands. "That's strange. What is going on...there's...nothing here." Prompto could tell it was starting to make him nervous, as he shot him a skeptical glance. He stepped backwards a bit, still feeling the air again and made a surprised sound.

"It's just on that spot. What is this?"

"Let's just leave," the blond managed to press out, growing colder by the minute. He felt like he was about to cry, overwhelmed by feelings that weren't his. It was scary, yes, but he felt so much at once, this couldn't be right.

Talion hesitated for a moment. He was kind of creeped out at that point, but would have loved to try a few things. But, seeing Prompto sitting on the ground and looking like he was completely done made him feel bad. So, he walked back over to help him up, just to freeze in his steps as he heard the shuffling again. It was as if something followed him. Prompto must have heard it as well, because he instantly held his breath and stared at a point on the ground behind Talion.

"The stones moved," Prompto whispered, still staring at the spot where some small stones just moved to the side on their own.

"Must have been me," Talion said, not sounding very convinced himself. Prompto shook his head. That wasn't him and they both knew it. Another sound to their right made them jump. More steps, like someone with heavy boots walked over the gravel. Not wanting to have any more of it, Talion grabbed Prompto by his upper arms and pulled him to his feet, then started pushing him towards the door. Stumbling a little, Prompto turned around to walk on his own. He just wanted to get out of there.

Talion exited the room first. Prompto wanted to follow, but for some dumb reason he couldn't understand, he stopped for a second. Looking over his shoulder, he stared right at a dark, foggy mass coming towards him. With a panicked scream, he jumped forward into the hallway where he stumbled again and fell down. Scooting backwards he stared in terror at the dark mass still following him. He could make out a human form but nothing specific. No facial features, no eyes. But he knew it stared at him.

Something grabbed him from behind and he was pulled back on his feet again. Talion's hand was clamped around Prompto's wrist as he started running, pulling the blond with him. They left the ruin, but the feeling of dread stayed. Prompto didn't dare to take another look back but he knew that 'it' was staring at him.

* * *

The voices of Libertus and Talion were muffled through the closed door, but Prompto could still hear them. As soon as they had reached Libertus' house, Prompto stormed off to hide in his room, still shaken over the events and not wanting to talk to anyone about it right now. He had closed all the curtains in his room and sat on his bed, knees drawn up as close to his chest as possible, his face buried in his arms.

Though he had seen some shadows in the corner of his eyes before, this time was the worst. He didn't even feel safe in his room anymore. It was as if something had followed them. They never should have gone there.

The voices outside grew louder. He couldn't make out everything but from what he could understand, Talion was trying to convince Libertus, that something was there in the ruins. Something that might be evil. Libertus sounded mostly angry, possibly about them going in there anyway.

He curled up even more as he heard a door slam and, after a moment of silence, steps coming towards his room. At least he could be sure that this was Libertus, his steps being easily distinguishable because of his ever so slight limp.

After a soft knock – which Prompto didn't react to – the door opened. He stayed in his position without even raising his head as he waited. He didn't want to move. Libertus took in the sight of Prompto, curled up on the bed and the closed curtains before he slowly walked over to the blond.

"Prompto?"

Prompto gave a silent hum as an answer, still not wanting to change his position. Libertus seemed to wait for him to at least look at him, but as nothing happened, he sat down on the bed.

"I'm angry about what you did. I told Talion, and I know he told you, to stay out of there."

"'m sorry."

"I don't know what you saw and I believe that this is not a bad joke you two made up, because I have never seen Talion that upset. But I have visited this place myself so many times and...there's nothing there."

Prompto's head finally snapped up and he stared at Libertus in disbelief.

"You mean...you don't believe us?"

Libertus shook his head, "I don't. Whatever happened there...I can't explain it. Maybe it was just your imagination and you made a ghost or whatever out of some crumbling walls. I don't know, but I do know that you weren't allowed in there and if this happens again, I..." he sighed. He felt like scolding a child for misbehaving and it didn't feel good. Arguing with Talion was easier, he kept insisting until Libertus was angry enough to send him away. Prompto was completely still, even seemed genuinely scared and still merely looked at him.

"I don't know, just...just leave it alone, alright? Please."

Prompto wasn't able to talk back to him. He wanted to yell at him, to become angry at not believing both of them, but he couldn't. His body felt numb. Eventually he nodded slowly to show Libertus that he understood.

"Good," Libertus said, standing up from the bed. "Rest a bit and calm down. I'm...sure there was nothing there."

With that, he left, leaving Prompto alone with his thoughts and the pictures that were now imprinted in his memory. He buried his face in his arms again and closed his eyes, concentrating on the noises that were definitely from Libertus, walking around, doing something in the kitchen or whatever. When he was able to relax enough he changed and crawled in his bed to find some sleep. It wasn't really dark outside yet, but leaving the safety of his room didn't feel like such a good idea right now.

Sleep came rather fast, but he had strange dreams of lurking shadows and strange whispers that seemed to always come from close behind him, no matter how he turned. He felt cold and in a half awake state, he tried to reach for his blanket, only to touch sand and gravel. His eyes snapped open.

This wasn't a dream anymore, was it?

Another wave of terror came over him as he realized, that he was lying in a room without a roof. He sat up, looking around. No mistake, that was the ruin. He rubbed his face frantically to make himself wake up, but nothing happened. He was clearly awake.

It wasn't the room he saw the black mass in, but that didn't make him feel any better. His body tensed up as he heard steps coming from the hallway. It was too dark to make our clear shapes with only the half moon providing some dim light and he wasn't sure if he even wanted to see anything. As quiet as possible, he crawled over to a partly collapsed wall, hiding in the niche it had made while the steps came closer and closer to the doorway of the room he was hiding in. Prompto barely breathed as he listened, still somewhat hoping to wake up.

Then it was silent.


	16. Can't run from your past

**I'm still there! Just slow! I'm sorry! Hope there's still people that wanna read.**

* * *

The silence was even worse than the steps. Was someone standing there, waiting for him to come out? He closed his eyes, silently begging to wake up, but this felt too real. He felt cold sitting there in just an over-sized sleeping shirt, shorts and with his bare feet starting to feel a bit numb. The nights in Galahd were always a bit chilly, but this time it was freezing. Prompto remembered Talion reacting to a particular spot in the room that was colder than the air around it.

Slowly leaning forward, he looked over to the doorway. Nothing was there as far as he could see, so he stood up and walked carefully to the door. Whatever was making the steps in the hallway, he hoped it was gone. He had to get back, or at least somewhere safer.

Standing in the hall, he looked around for a moment. No one. Just the darkness of the night. There was the exit, he just had to walk through it and would be out of there. But, for some reason, Prompto couldn't move. He wanted nothing more than to run out of there, but his legs wouldn't budge. He didn't feel paralyzed, more like something was holding him back mentally.

"Stop it," he said after taking a deep breath to fight down his fear. "Stop it and let me go, I-I haven't done anything to you, I just...want o-"

The shuffling let him fall silent again and he strained his ears to find out where it came from. Turning his head to the right, he looked directly into the room he dreaded most and let out a small whimper. Shuffling turned into heavy steps coming slowly towards him. Prompto still felt like he was rooted to the place he was standing.

Right in front of him, the steps came to a halt. It was dead silent, Prompto felt like he was about to cry. Suddenly the temperature dropped rapidly and in front of his face he heard and felt something like someone was breathing in. Prompto jumped back, finally regaining more or less control over his body. His legs didn't respond as he wanted them to, he stumbled and was about to fall when a hand grabbed his right wrist. It felt like the old wound, that was in the process of scarring over by now, was ripped open again and he gripped his arm, as the pain spread and traveled up to his shoulder.

'Look at me.'

Prompto's head snapped up and his body went completely stiff. He was staring at Nyx's face, it was definitely him. His vision blurred as tears filled his eyes, from both the freezing cold around him and the fact that Nyx was towering over him. The blond gasped as images appeared in front of his eyes. Or was it just in his head? Faces and locations, some he had never seen before, some he knew. He saw King Regis and Lady Lunafreya, different people in their Kingsglaive uniforms, some of them he remembered from Libertus' photos. Then explosions. A fight? And...was that Insomnia?

For what felt like an eternity, they stared at each other, until the pain in his wrist became unbearable and his head started throbbing from the rapidly changing images, so Prompto started struggling.

'Look at me,' Nyx demanded again, but Prompto shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut.

"Leave me alone!" he yelled, finally finding his voice. With another hard pull he broke free and jumped to the side. Pressed against the wall, he ran past Nyx, ducking under his outstretched hand that was trying to grab him again, then he started sprinting for his life.

He slowed down to a jog when Libertus' house came in sight, but came to a full stop when he saw the front door open. His last hopes of all this being a dream were blown away. He must have sleepwalked out there for some reason.

Looking back over his shoulder, he stifled another scream as he saw Nyx's shape standing in the street. This couldn't be, the ruin wasn't even in sight. As the dark shape moved, Prompto started running again, slamming the door behind him as soon as he was inside.

Still panting, he walked backwards while staring at the door as if something could break through at any moment. Nothing happened. Libertus was still oblivious, snoring away in his bedroom. The sound calmed Prompto down a bit and with his sinking adrenaline level, he became aware of the pain in his shoulder and his feet. Running on gravel with naked feet was normally pretty painful so he felt glad he didn't feel it at that moment. He must have grazed his shoulder on the ragged wall as he had tried to avoid Nyx. The sleeve of his shirt had prevented the worst, but he was still bleeding from many small cuts.

Once again, he looked over to the door, just to be sure, then he walked to his room to crawl into his bed as he was. He felt so drained and tired, he only wanted to sleep. And forget it all.

* * *

He felt relieved when he woke up in his bed this time, and he would have thought all this for the most real nightmare he ever had were it not for the still present cuts and sore feet. For a while, he was just lying on his back, staring at the ceiling until he noticed the dull throbbing in his wrist. Wincing a bit, he lifted his arm and looked at it, immediately feeling cold at the sight. It was a dark bruise with the clear form of a hand wrapped around his wrist. Prompto stared at it for a minute before he jumped out of the bed.

Storming out of his room, he nearly ran over Libertus, who was already up. Muttering an apology under his breath, Prompto hid his bruised arm to avoid any questioning and left the house, leaving a slightly bewildered Libertus behind. He needed to talk to Talion about last night, at least he would believe him.

* * *

"I'm not sure if I wanna believe that."

Talion stared wide-eyed at Prompto's shaking arm, the bruise still visible, clearly a hand.

"I tell you, it was him," the blond said, still shaken about the last night and the fact that it wasn't just a bad dream. "Nyx was there and-and he was talking to me and, uh...he-some...when he touched me, I saw all those pictures and I'm sure that was Insomnia falling." His voice was a bit higher pitched than usual.

Talion was silent for a moment, way too long for Prompto, who started pacing along the stalls, combing through his hair a few times with shaking fingers.

After not finding Talion at home, Prompto made an effort to take the longest way there was to evade Nyx's house, to the stables and his heart felt like it was still racing. But at least Talion was there and the blond didn't lose any time to tell him what happened the last night. Or what he believed had happened.

Walking over to Cass' stall, he took the mare's head in both hands and looked at her. Hay was sticking out of her mane and it seemed like she dove head first into a fresh heap of it. "You don't think I'm going crazy, do you?" he whispered against her nose, earning a short snort from her as a response.

"Hey," Talion sounded a tad offended, "I don't think you're going crazy, if you are then I'm going nuts too, this whole thing is crazy."

"Yeah, tell me about it," the blond scoffed, face nuzzled into Cass' fur. Talion either hadn't heard it or chose to ignore the salty comment. He stayed silent for another moment before he loudly clapped his hands together, startling the chocobos in the stalls close to him. Cass only perked her ears up, but otherwise didn't move, other than Prompto, whose head had whipped up at the sudden noise.

"Ya know what?" he said, already pulling Prompto towards the door. "Let's go there now. Let's talk to it...him...whatever."

"W-what?" Prompto gasped, trying to pull away from the other, "No-no, no way am I going there again, Talion, did you even listen to me?"

Talion turned around to look at the blond, dark brown meeting blue orbs. "I did listen to you, very closely actually. And you know what," he licked his lips nervously. His own idea was setting him off and he mostly just wanted to hurry so he wouldn't pull back from it. "He said 'Look at me'. Multiple times. And, bear with me here, I think he wants to tell you something."

That sounded so messed up. And plausible.

"Think about it," Talion went on as Prompto only chewed on his lip, still not fully convinced, "Did he ever try to seriously hurt you? Ah-I mean, yeah, he bruised your arm but he...he never tried to seriously hurt you. Or-or to kill you. Or did I miss something?"

The gunner shook his head. That was about it. It was still messed up, but true. He was scared every time he had been in there, of course, and his wrist still felt weirdly cold, as if Nyx's hand still was right there. But, the scrapes and cuts were on himself alone, stumbling about on bare feet and falling against a crumbling wall.

"No," he sighed out, "You didn't miss anything. And you're possibly right, even though that terrifies me...but...what could he want from me? Why me?"

"Now that's what we're gonna ask him," he nudged the blond's upper arm and turned around again, Prompto following on his own this time, "Only he can tell us, right?"

"Yeah...right...I guess."

* * *

Getting closer to the old building, Prompto's steps slowed more and more. Talion might have been right with his assumption, but the gunner really didn't want to go through all this again; the mere thought of it made him antsy.

"Prompto?" Talion's voice ripped him out of his thoughts, "No turning back now, come on." He seemed as nervous as Prompto felt, but the thing about Talion was, he tended to walk towards the danger to confront it. Quite the opposite of what the blond wanted to do right now.

"Ya know, I...really think that's not a great idea," he said, shifting from one foot to the other. "Maybe we could-"

"Don't even think about it."

Prompto bit his lip and suppressed the urge to keep talking. Talion wouldn't let him anyway. Walking unbearably slow, he followed, the distance between them growing bigger again, until he stopped, right before the entrance. Talion was already inside, looking around, while the blond only stared down the hallway, trying to identify the feeling he had right now.

"Nothing," he whispered in disbelief. It felt too normal. As if nothing ever had been wrong with this place. Getting slightly more confident, he followed Talion inside. His feet took him directly to the room where they had their first encounter. Talion was standing inside, feeling the air with his hands and a concentrated look on his face.

"You remember that cold spot?" he said, giving Prompto a short look to see if he heard him. "It was only in this room, right here."

"And is it still there?" Prompto stayed close to the entrance of the room, not wanting to go farther in. Though his assumption was confirmed when the other shook his head.

"It's nothing like the last time," he said, more to himself than to Talion. "Like...nothing's ever been here. It-it's nothing like last night, or...before."

They went through every room, and everywhere was the same. An old ruined house, nothing more. For a solid few minutes the gunner stood still, staring at the spot where he woke up that night. "Why is everything gone?"

A fingersnap right next to him made him jump and he turned his head to see Talion looking at him intently. "You said he followed you."

Prompto swallowed. He did.

Both turned on their heels and started sprinting. The blond couldn't even say if Libertus or anyone else was in danger, but the imagination of Nyx's ghost, or whatever it was, now being at their house did not sit well with him.

Arriving at the front door, both slowed down and stopped. It looked undisturbed and Prompto had no weird feelings yet; still, Talion had already opened the door and went in. Following much slower, the gunner heard two hushed voices from the kitchen and then another voice, crackling, become louder.

'The Radio?' he thought and sped up his steps until he entered the room. Libertus' hand whipped up to silence him before he could even say anything, but that wasn't even necessary for Prompto was already listening after hearing the words 'Altissia' and 'Oracle' through the broadcast.

Has something happened to Luna?

' _-has now confirmed, that the Oracle Lunafreya Nox Fleuret has died during the incident in Altissia five days ago when the awakening of Leviathan went terribly wrong.'_

He let out a shaky breath. It felt like his heart had stopped beating and his insides has been replaced by a deep pit. Luna was dead. But what about…

"What about Noct," he whispered, sinking down onto a chair. Libertus slowly turned his head, mouthing the word 'Noct'. Prompto was still listening to the broadcast, not noticing the other man looking at him. But Libertus remembered something. Someone else who used that name.

"'Noct' as in 'Noctis'? You mean the prince?" he eventually said when the broadcast ended.

The blond visibly winced but kept staring at the radio for another minute. Ardyn's words rang in his head and the memories of his dreams came back to life for a moment. He hadn't thought about all this for a good while now.

"Prompto."

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Libertus lean over and nodded to answer his question.

"Yeah," he sighed, "I...meant him. They didn't say anything about him in there, but...I-I think he's in Altissia too, at least he was...planning to."

"Wait a second. You know the prince?" Talion sounded a bit offended, "Why didn't you tell us? I mean, what-"

"Tal," Libertus interrupted, looking at the younger man as a sign to calm down a bit before turning back to Prompto. "They mentioned him before you came, that he'd been hurt but alive, but nothing in particular. But I guess you really have to explain at least some things."

The blond bit his lip. This new information only made it slightly better. "I didn't lie," he said, giving in to the two pairs of eyes staring at him, "The road trip was no lie, I was with them, we were to travel with Noct to Altissia to meet up with Luna there. For their marriage and all."

A short glance over told him that both of them were still listening to his ramblings and so he went on, "I went to school with Noctis, we were friends for five years."

"'Were'?" Libertus spoke up, "You told me you had a fight. That true?"

Prompto wanted to hide. "Yes...no...no, not really, I...it's complicated, okay?" He didn't want to tell them. It felt like everything would fall apart, everything would go away and he would be on his own again.

"So, I guess something happened and you left," Libertus summarized and got up, "Ran away without telling?"

Ashamed, Prompto nodded, eyes seemingly glued to the table, "That sums it up good enough, I guess."

"They'd have looked for you."

He shrugged, trying to seem indifferent, but he wasn't. "And now they're in Altissia. Even if they looked for me, they gave it up and went on. A-And that's okay, I mean, that journey is more important than this."

"Ya think?" Libertus scoffed and got up. "So, you think they weren't worried? And they didn't look for you everywhere and only gave up because they think you're dead?"

That stung. Prompto shrank visibly on his chair, not knowing what to say. Of course those thoughts had crossed his mind multiple times when he left and even during his first days in Galahd, but...he somehow had managed to push all this away. Being forgotten was something he always feared and now he did it with his friends, almost forgot about them. Slowly, he nodded. What else could he do other than admit it. He fucked up again. Period.

"I'm sorry."

"Say that to them."

Something appeared in front of his face and he blinked a few times in surprise. Libertus waved a little with the old phone in his hand. "Our lines may not be the best yet, but they work good enough. You know at least one of their numbers, do you?"

Feeling heat rise, Prompto nodded. It felt weird thinking of it but he still knew Noctis' number by heart, and so he reluctantly grabbed the phone. Talion gave him a reassuring smile, looking as nervous as Prompto felt. Feeling Libertus' hand on his shoulder he took a deep breath and dialed the number.

His heart rate sped up when he listened to the noises. First there were only crackles, then the line came to life and nearly a minute he listened to the dial tone. He was about to end the call, when he heard a tired voice.

" _Who's this."_

For a moment, Prompto felt nauseous. He never realized how much he had missed this voice. Letting out a shaky breath, he felt a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Uhm...hey, Noct."

" _Prom?"_


	17. The call he had been waiting for

**Still alive, still writing, hi there! Just to say it again: I put Galahd north of the Cleigne region because when I reseached it, I found several posts saying it could be there. It fits in the story. Please don't be mad xD**

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 _A soft groan made Gladio pull his eyes from his book and over to the prince, who was still leaning against him. They hadn't changed positions for about an hour now._

" _You still with me, bud?" he asked, slightly readjusting the cloth that still covered most of the raven's face._

 _Noctis' face scrunched up, Gladio's voice was way too loud for his liking. "I feel sick," he muttered, trying to change his position just a little without moving his pounding head too much._

" _You gotta puke?"_

 _Another groan was the only answer._

" _Because I'd like you to tell me if you have to, I don't want you vomiting all over the place. And me."_

 _His hand shot up, lifting one corner of the cloth to give Gladio a squinted glare. "Would you stop?"_

 _The brute chuckled, gave him a short nod and Noctis let the cloth plop back down on his face. It was completely dry by now but it wasn't about the coolness, it just felt kinda soothing to have his eyes covered._

" _How are you feeling?" Gladio's voice again, grating in his ears like fingernails on a chalkboard._

 _He bit back a snappy answer and tried to make out how he actually was feeling. "Sick. Tired. Wanna sleep," he said in a monotone voice._

" _Let's stick to just dozing for now, okay?"_

" _Why."_

" _Because, Noct, you have a concussion and I don't want you to fall asleep just yet."_

" _B't I wanna," the raven slurred, swallowing hard a few times. This didn't go unnoticed by Gladio and he kept a close eye on the younger. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ignis' head pacing by the window. He was still trying to reach everyone he could think of it seems._

 _Putting his book down, he watched the prince closely for any other weird behaviour. Though he was acting weird enough since he got hit, this was new._

" _No chance, Noct," he said, to get his attention again and keep him busy, "It's either staying awake for a bit and, at best, getting better on your own, or we'll get you to a hospital somehow."_

" _Tha's both shit," Noctis said, shifting nervously in his position now. He hated to admit it but, something felt off. And it got worse._

 _Suddenly Noctis moved really fast, eliciting a surprised gasp from Gladio. On all fours on the ground, he started emptying his stomach, the raging headaches blurring his sight. He felt hands holding him so he wouldn't just crumple down to a heap on the floor and somewhere far away Gladio's voice calling his and Ignis' name._

Noctis' head jerked up and a few coughs sounded out. The memory of that day still vivid in his head, he rubbed his eyes to force his brain to push them further back again. It was no use though. There hasn't been one night where he didn't dream about it.

Prompto was still out there. Somewhere, he just knew it! But after countless days of searching and following even the smallest hint, Ignis and Gladio stopped him. They had to go on, of course, he knew that but, without Prompto?

They fought. For a long time they were at each other's throats about the smallest thing. This only calmed down once they reached Altissia. For a few days it was okay, he actually dared to think that things would become better; they found Luna, were so close to finally talking to her...and then it all went to shit.

He forced his body to move and got up from his bed to walk over to the window. From there, he could see the part of the city that has been wrecked by the rampaging goddess Leviathan and Niflheim soldiers. There were still some thin smoke columns rising from the ruins. Hundreds have died, the evacuation only saved part of the people. Luna had passed, thanks to Ardyn. And the weight on the prince's shoulders felt unbearable.

A soft knock pulled him from his thoughts and he turned around to see Gladio's head peeking in. "You're finally awake," he said and, for a moment, Noctis felt the anger rise. The brute's voice was void of any emotion, but that comment still felt like an accusation. Biting back a snide comment, he half shrugged and acted disinterested.

"I am. Is something wrong?"

Gladio shook his head and stepped farther into the room, pushing the door open. "Not wrong, but you've been sleeping quite a lot." He jabbed his thumb over his shoulder. "You should come out and eat something. Ignis has been asking about you nonstop, he's worried."

Noctis bit his lip as a pang of guilt shot through his chest. Ignis. When he woke up after the fight, his adviser had changed drastically. And since then, he was barely able to look at him. This all felt like it was his fault, despite Ignis saying otherwise.

He combed through his hair with his fingers, cringing slightly when he felt how greasy it was. Of course, he barely left the bed for nearly a week now. Maybe eating wasn't such a bad idea. And then a shower.

"Might...not be a bad idea," he said hesitantly. For a moment he could see relief flashing over Gladio's face, which made him only feel worse. They worried about him and he was just...numb, spending day after day sleeping. He followed Gladio into the next room, his gaze instantly flicking to Ignis on the sofa. The brunet had lifted his head a little when he heard two pairs of footsteps approaching, but he only slightly turned his head in their direction, eyes still staring straight ahead into nothingness.

"Noct," he said, a weak smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, "I'm glad you're up."

"Yeah..." this was the most awkward response, but everything the raven could muster. It all still felt like a bad dream. A few minutes later they were all situated around the large desk, the food that had been brought to them looking and smelling delicious. On any other occasion, Noctis would have enjoyed the luxurious hotel in every way he could think of but right now the only reason he was eating was because his body was screaming for more than a few bites of bread like he had the last days.

They ate in silence, nobody really wanting to talk about anything just yet. In this silence, the sound of Noctis' phone went off. The raven jumped at the noise and, for a few startled seconds, he wasn't even sure where the noise came from until he turned around and saw it lying on a shelf. Hesitantly, he got up and walked over to look at the flashing screen. An unknown number.

"The Marshal?" Gladio asked, getting up himself to walk over to Noctis, who shook his head.

"Don't know the number," he muttered, his finger hovering over the decline button for a moment, before he changed his mind and took the call.

"Who's this," he asked, trying to sound demanding, but he wasn't sure if he succeeded. For a moment, there were only a few crackles, then he thought he heard someone breathe in.

" _Uhm..hey, Noct."_

Noctis' eyes widened, his body felt like it was tuned to ice. This can't be. A few times he opened his mouth without making any sound, not able to fully comprehend what was happening. Then his voice came back.

"Prom?"

Ignis' head jerked up and Gladio winced visibly next to him. His legs felt like they were about to give in and his whole body started shaking. This was unmistakably Prompto's voice. Crackling as if he was having bad reception, but it was him. Alive.

With stiff movements, he walked over to the sofa, ignoring the calls from Ignis and Gladio, demanding to put him on speaker and asking other questions the raven ignored.

"Prompto," he said again, voice quivering, "Is-is that really you? Prom...Prom, where are you, where the hell are you, we thought you were dead!"

The silence on the other end of the line lasted way too long and Noctis had to call his name again to get a reaction.

" _Galahd,"_ he heard Prompto say, " _Noct, I'm...I-I'm so sorry about what I did, I was just-"_

"Are you alright?" Noctis interrupted him. Right now he didn't care why he did it, the gunner could answer that when he was back with them, "Are you hurt?"

" _I'm okay"_ , this time the answer came faster, " _I'm okay, don't worry. Listen, I...heard what happened in Altissia. Is everything alright with you guys?"_

Noctis' expression grew dark and he nodded slightly, before mentally slapping himself for the nonverbal reaction and answered with a short "Yeah. We're...still kicking."

" _That's good. I'm glad."_

They all fell silent, both friends not sure what to say next and Ignis and Gladio didn't dare to speak, fearing they would miss something. When Noctis finally remembered where exactly the region of Galahd was, he raised his voice again.

"Do you have a way to get back? To some place in Duscae or Cleigne. Any place where we could...meet up. Pick you up."

He heard Prompto's breath hitch and gave him a moment to compose himself. Whatever had happened to him, it seemed to have made him believe they wouldn't want him anymore.

" _I..."_ his voice came back, shaking even more now, " _Yeah. I hav-I have a...a friend, who can take me there. It might take a while though."_

Noctis nodded more eagerly now, shifting around nervously. "That's okay," he said, not hiding his excitement, "We have to get back first too, so..."

"The Vesperpool," Ignis perked up, interrupting the raven, who was now looking at the brunet curiously, "Galahd is quite large, but that lake is very close to it. It might be the best spot to meet."

Noctis' heart raced when he relayed the information to Prompto. "You think you can get there?"

" _Yeah, I think I know where that is. But, are you sure you-"_

"Promise me," he interrupted the blond when he was starting to sound more insecure again, "that you'll be there. That we will meet up and go on together again, promise me that."

" _Noctis, I..."_ Prompto stammered and Noctis could hear some voices in the background. They sounded urging but not aggressive. The thought that his friend might be held hostage by someone still made his stomach churn for a moment. But when he heard Prompto answer calmly and sounding like he knew them, he pushed those thoughts aside.

"Prom," he said again, when the blond took too long to answer, "Can you promise me that? That you'll be there?"

He heard the blond draw in a deep breath and it took all his strength to not urge him some more, to not force him to answer with a 'yes'. He just prayed silently.

" _I promise."_

Noctis release a breath he held and closed his eyes for a moment. He hadn't felt so relieved in a long time.

"Good," he said, voice cracking slightly, "That's good. Thank you, Prom. And...I promise that too, alright? We'll be there."

" _Yeah."_

They exchanged a few more awkward words, none of them exactly knowing what to say, Noctis felt like he was in a daze and when the call ended, his hand dropped in his lap, the phone still in a death grip.

"I don't care what you guys say," he finally said, slightly shaking his head, "I will go back. I will get him and I won't go anywhere else before I do that."

Gladio sighed deeply and Ignis straightened up in his chair. "I may be a little bit indisposed," the adviser began, his voice showing the slightest hint of amusement, "And Your Highness didn't even bother to put the phone on speaker so we could hear Prompto's voice too. Also, I know exactly that we should keep going forward as we still haven't found all the Royal Arms."

With every word he said, Noctis sank deeper in his spot. He couldn't be serious. "But, I also just provided you with a place to meet up, so...I'm with you."

Noctis coughed out a shot laugh at that. He got him there.

His next look wandered over to Gladio, who had been silent the entire time, standing there with his arms crossed and an unreadable face.

"Gladio, if you don't want to-"

"Are you kidding me?" the brute interrupted, voice a bit louder than he had planned, "Imma go with ya and whip that kid's ass for giving us such a hard time!"

Noctis could only snort at that. "We should take turns, then."

"For putting up with your princely tantrums during the whole time, I'll have to be first with that."

"We'll see." Noctis got up, feeling better than ever now. Motivated. "When will we leave?"

"As soon as possible, I may say," Ignis said, getting up from his seat. He still was visibly unstable in his movements, but after this news, the brunet seemed more eager to do whatever he could. "Let's see if our ship is ready to head back to Caem."

"Let's do that, Iggy."


End file.
